> A simple, small, unpainted cinder block shack doesn't hide its materials, is made of raw concrete, but probably isn't brutalist. Neither is a brick victorian.
> The idea that beautiful forms can come from purely functional design without needing to cover things up with baroque decoration is really a central theme.
They are not remotely contradictory. Something being beautiful because the architect or a stylist added beautiful decorations is entirely different from something being beautiful because the lines, forms, and overall composition of the functional form, by itself, is beautiful. Much of the material on a brick victorian is purely for decoration. A small cinder block box, unless it was purpose-built to store boxes, was not built carefully to consider how it interacts with its occupants.
I'm not sure if you just skimmed most of my comment, but it was pretty clearly discussing architecture.
A small cinder block shack isn't very functional, so not brutalist. A brick victorian is intentionally ornate (it exposes the brick as part of its aesthetic, not because of a reluctance to decorate) ergo it isn't brutalist.
> The idea that beautiful forms can come from purely functional design without needing to cover things up with baroque decoration is really a central theme.
Huh? These two are contradictory statements. I recommend giving this a read, Architecture is where brutalism first sprung up: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/t-magazine/design/brutali...