All about context and contrast.
Brutalist buildings tend not to work in European city centres because they don’t contrast well enough with the other buildings around them. If like the Brazillians you drop them into the middle of a jungle or a huge park, the straight lines contrast against natures lines of foliage and landscape, as do the colours, and it looks boss.
Obviously scale and form come into it a bit too; Lang Stracht hotel and Cumbernauld town centre won’t ever look good anywhere, they’re just not fundamentally good enough. They’d have benefited from a bit of Futurism or Googie, but I assume they were just too cheap for that.
Think of Brutalist buildings like a pair of massive tits, they’re great in the right place, but nobody want’s them on a munter.
