Building of the week: Preston Bus Station

Whether you appreciate its aesthetic or not, there’s no doubt that Brutalism gave us some of the 20th century’s most distinctive buildings. Named after the french word for raw or untreated, the architectural movement used exposed concrete to create stark and angular buildings. Done badly, it meant grey soulless monoliths, ugly and unloved and hardly helped by the connotations of the word ‘brutalism’.

At its best however, the movement was capable of extraordinary buildings. They drew the eye ...