Happy to see this is back online and that Zillow backed off [0].
[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/29/15896146/zillow-will-not-...
The McMansions featured here look like they’ve been generated by some deep learning algorithm - building features blobbed randomly together with no rhyme or reason.
I am always amazed by Americans love of 'period' style architecture in preference to a more modernist style. Especially when I see friends in my age group (30s) pack there homes with dark wooden furniture that looks like it would be more at home in Versailles. To me it is just visually exhausting and I crave the relative calm of some minimalist sleek lines.
I’m not a fan of the examples given simply because it feels like they are comparing bigger McMansion houses to smaller, simpler houses. I’d rather have the comparisons be of “proper” mansions to McMansions, because abiding by the stated principals is obviously going to be easier in smaller houses.
Like the primary / secondary mass bit is obviously going to be harder to deal with the bigger the house gets.
This feels like the architectural equivalent of linguistic prescriptivism. If "basic architectural concepts" declare buildings to be "especially hideous", but people are seemingly happy to buy and live in them, what grounds do we have to decide that the people are wrong and not the concepts?
I would add for the inside of the house, a poor or illogical use of space. I remember one house where the stairway to the upper floor bisected the main floor, causing there to be a hallway on one side, then a strange sort of "bumpout" under the stairway (once it had risen past 8 feet in height) on the other side. If you didn't use the hallway you had to walk through a sort of small sitting room before then entering the farthest part of the dining room.
If you ever see one under construction, another thing that makes a mcmansion what it is , the cheap wood. Chipboard, particleboard and medium density fiberboard all over the place. God help you if you ever have a roof leak. Or a siding leak. Or it sits out in the rain while under construction before completion.
Contractors save thousands per tract home using this shit instead of proper plywood.
Also, staple gun and nailed construction where there should be high quality wood screws.
Honestly, I think the examples she gave of bad looks, look great. But I love bizarre and ugly architecture, so what do I know.
I remember this being posted years ago. Anyway, I think it's a great write-up. It's one of those things where I don't know why it looks so awful, but I can tell it does- nice to read about why.
I’m not sure I agree with these examples and I’m not big on architecture criticism like this. I think it’s important not to overvalue a building based on how it looks - 99.9% of your time will be spent inside the building, .1% or less will be spent outside looking at it. Modern houses can be much nicer inside: larger open areas, larger kitchens, larger bathrooms and (usually) less lead paint and asbestos.
The same goes for office buildings, where I think the conservation movement overvalues the small amount of time people spend looking at a building vs the huge amount of time people work inside it. I’ve been in old beautiful office buildings in NYC and modern ugly office buildings and the modern buildings usually have a much better working environment and layout.
Example 1 looks fine to me, I would be happy to live in this house. It’s not beautiful but it’s not ugly.
Example 2 is ugly, the windows on the front are weird and the side has too few windows. My main issues with McMansions is they look cheaper than older houses because of the materials and sometimes facades have no windows or few windows, while old houses tend to have more windows and they are evenly balanced.
Example 3 looks fine, it’s almost pretty.
Example 4 would be better if the dark brick part on the house’s left had a window, and the white brick with random dark bricks is kind of ugly. Not terrible though.
Example 5 looks fine and I like red brick houses.
Example 6 is okay too.
I’d be happy with most of these houses if they had a nice interior and nice yard.
McMansions are nothing but large track houses. The small house examples here are the track house. There are way bigger problems than articulated, like ecology, economics, egonomics, and more, but calling these houses architectural is pretending like architecture is actually a factor, when in reality, for McMansions and track houses alike, that's just not the case: it's all toothpicks and gypsum, stamped out of a design factory. There is no "architecture", because the buyers don't know shit, can't afford real design, and probably care less about the style than they do the suburb, neighborhood, policing, schools, etc.
One thing this article does give away tho, is how much these houses are showcased exactly like hamburgers in commercials vis a vis what you get at the fast food chain: everything in the commercial is pushed forward and jutting out the front: windows, awnings, decks, etc. That's why they call them McMansions.
I'd agree part of the problem is the widespread "buy the most house for the lowest price" phenomenon, which infects many other aspects of our society beyond shopping for homes, but far and away the primary problem here has little to do with architectural issues. The problem is with builders who are trying to maximize their profit - the key being build the biggest house possible on a lot of a given size (or per FAR restrictions). And the same group of builders who go this route tend to have little awareness or real concern for aesthetics - to them architecture is better when you have many rooms, higher foyers, more complicated floor plans and roof planes, and a larger number of different types of building/cladding materials. The appeal of these things has slowly creeped into the general public because tract house builders have adopted lesser versions of this crap for decades.
Now go look at Edinburgh Castle, Scotland's iconic castle. No symmetry. Multiple competing masses.
Fallingwater - no symmetry, no main mass, way too many voids.
English Tudor houses have many of the features the author complains about. They're usually asymmetrical and have multiple competing masses.
What this guy likes is a big square house with a centered entrance and two wings. Like the White House, antebellum plantation mansions, and most US governors mansions.
Was under the impression a mcmansion was a giant suburban tract home on a very small lot. Apparently it means a unique poorly designed one with more space.
It is a little abstract, but I believe "what you put in comes out".
You will notice that, when love and attention are put in, most of the people will say that the result is beautifull.
All things like balance, form and color will follow.
I believe the above can be seen in everything people make (even software).
A "I want 10 rooms and 5 bathrooms house" is just that. A big house with a lot of rooms.
"Bad" implies an aesthetics system. A taste system implies a shared culture and an hierarchy of taste.
The US, especially the modern US, lacks that.
So, in the US nothing can be deemed "bad archicteure" with any objectivity - it's only so a few experts who are rooted in architectural history, and to a slightly larger number (but still small) of people who mimic their opinion.
Cheap materials, no heart, excessive useless space
I don't see the point in criticising other people's houses.
If they have the money, and if that's what they want, more power to them. I wish I could afford to build whatever I wanted.
(2016)
See also previous discussion from 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12286724 (519 comments)
I don't like mcmansions either, but it's hard to follow these made-up ideals.
mostly subjective. architectural beauty is mostly in the eye of the beholder.
Is it wierd that none of this stuff bothers me? I’d never have noticed a problem with any of those houses.
... and they always go for 2 sinks in the bathroom. What's up with that?
I mean, the last thing my wife would want is me in the bathroom with her in the morning, brushing my teeth at the exact same time-- as if it's totally normal for folks to use the bathroom together.
These places have so much wasted space, they feel the need to fill it up unnecessary stuff.
If there was actually a valid purpose for dual sinks in the bathroom other than filling space, there would also be two toilets, for competition?
It’s so awful to provide people with more living space.
We all know what "makes it bad". It's a symbol of wealth that isn't nearly as expensive as it looks.
That's what offends people here. Everything else is the best excuse they can come up with.
The issue is that with things that are truly expensive are equally bullshit. Art, for instance, is first of all, mostly not even made by the artist that signed it, secondly, it doesn't have a deeper meaning, thirdly, the difference between absurdly celebrated art (say Gogh, or Michelangelo) and the (many) works of unknown masters is ... tenuous at best. Same with diamonds and gold, as pointed out many times in the economic discussions.
Symbols of wealth that don't prove wealth ... people feel this is how they "prove" their own value, how they get respect, and so on. And if a symbol of wealth gets reliably faked ... people are very upset. In reality we should celebrate that this is possible, of course, but in practice people who have paid a lot fear it will destroy their self-worth.
At first I gave these houses the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they look tacky so the interior could be logical.
Then I cracked up looking at the turret in [0].
[0] http://mcmansionhell.com/post/149472892236/houston-tx