then I googled and was like "oh god that fucking eyesore that plagues the campus of my hometown university"

Heh.

Yeah, "that fucking eyesore that plagues the (region) of (city)" sums up most Brutalist stuff, IMO. There are some spectacular things like Habitat 67 in Montreal that aren't totally gross, and I do appreciate the argument that a style of building that apparently succeeded in, say, Israel really wasn't suited to wetter regions where the concrete aged and stained in horrible ways (so, decent idea --> bad execution) but overall, yeah. Eyesore.