Barclays Center will have an intended layer of rust upon its finished facade. Traditional materials were rejected in favor of 12,000 separate pieces of what is called “weathering steel.”

The material gives the new home of the Nets an industrial, raw-looking material that is popular in and around New York City.

“When the material gets wet, there is a rusty wash that goes down onto adjacent areas of concrete,” said Michael Devonshire, a materials expert at Jan Hird Pokorny Associates, an architecture firm. “It can get really funky looking.”

The steel was weathered before it arrived in Brooklyn, as the components spent approximately four months at a plant in Indianapolis. 

The arena looks like what would happen if “Richard Serra and Chanel created a U.F.O. together," said Gregg Pasquarelli, who is one of the principal architects of the firm that designed the arena.