Passage:

In reviews of the new museum wing, several critics praised the architect for a restraint that kept the building from upstaging the art. One critic, however, called that restraint a kind of aesthetic evasion, arguing that the design refuses to take a position and therefore cannot be meaningfully evaluated. The critic conceded that the wing is pleasant to walk through, but insisted that pleasantness is not the same as architectural seriousness.

As used in the passage, the word conceded most nearly means: