I had a chance of working in a few brutalist style buildings (in different countries) and I hated it. All this concrete looks pretty horrible and is depressing inside. This actually brings a point about architecture. I feel that first and foremost the building should be designed for people inside the building, while how it looks from the outside should be lower priority. I do feel sometimes it is the other way around, where the architects design the building to win the awards and often aim at how unusual it's going to look etc, but what the actual occupants of the building will think is not really considered.
The main building in the college I studied at was called "Magellan" and designed to look like a sextant when viewed from above. I spent maybe 2 years in it before realizing that fact. It was very awkwardly shaped and no two classrooms where the same size.
It's located in a very rainy and cold part of the country, but the roof was completely flat and often leaked from the rainwater accumulating over it. The main hall had a giant 3-storey glass wall facing north, and as a result the building was extremely cold and a nightmare to heat up.
For what it's worth, the concrete used in these type of official building tend to look decent even as it ages.
I've seen none of the buildings in the article as they're mostly out of Tokyo, but for instance the national art center in Roppongi is raw concrete and it still looks very nice
They're light gray when dry and dark gray/brown when wet. Their lack of colour feels dreary and oppressive. I like the form of quite a few brutalist buildings, but the grayness of them feels like a neverending cloudy afternoon.
