MCMANSION HELLCERTIFIED DANKABOUTMCMANSIONS 101ARCHITECTURECONTACTARCHIVE Located just outside of Detroit, this 5 bed, 4.5 bath house tops out at over 10,000 square feet. Yes, you read that right. 10,000. You’ll see why later. Anyways, if you want to purchase said house, it can be all yours for just under $1,000,000. A steal!

MCMANSIONS 101

McMansions 101. THE 10 CIRCLES OF MCMANSION HELL (THE MCMANSION SCALE) McMansions 101 #1: What Makes a McMansion Bad Architecture? McMansions 101 #2: McMansion Front Entries. McMansions 101 #3: Columns. MCMANSIONS 101: ROOFS Roof Rule No 1: 2 shapes, and 2 shapes only (on the front elevation) Literally 90% of house roofs are either gabled or hipped. Like seriously, go out for a walk and look at the roofs. Gables and hips, y’all, gables and hips. Before we bring in the offenders, let’s look at some happy houses: Here is a happy house with one roof shape:

cross

CERTIFIED DANK™

Certified Dank™ Want to binge on fugly houses? You’ve come to the right place. Here is the archive of Certified Dank™ McMansions of the Week: Howard County, MD #1 Cook County, IL Oakland County, MCMANSION HELL: GREAT BRITAIN EDITION (PART 1 OFSEE MORE ON

MCMANSIONHELL.COM

CORONAGRIFTING: A DESIGN PHENOMENON MCMANSIONS 101: WHAT MAKES A MCMANSION BAD... The McMansion has no concept of mass. McMansions often have so many secondary masses that the primary mass is reduced to a role of filling in gaps between the secondary masses. An example: Another issue with McMansions and mass is the use of too many voids. Some McMansions are so guilty of this they resemble swiss cheese in appearance. THE MAIL ORDER AMERICAN DREAM: AN Identifying Kit Houses Step 1: The Three Common Site Locations. One of the easiest ways to begin one’s search for mail order houses is knowing where to look in the first place. Kit Houses are most commonly found in these areas: 1.) First Generation Suburbs (Streetcar and Railroad Suburbs) (1906-1930) WORST OF MCMANSIONS: CANADA EDITION Worst of McMansions: Canada Edition. Jan 29, 2017. 1,943 notes. Hello Friends! Today I’m going to do something different. As you all know, this past week has been very stressful for those of us living in the USA. Rather than write a document about mortgages and bonds, I’ve decided to do something a lot more light-hearted: ugly house BETSY DEVOS’S SUMMER HOME DESERVES A SPECIAL PLACE Betsy DeVos’s summer home deserves a special place in McMansion Hell. Kate Wagner dissects the shingle-style Michigan summer home of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. In order to earn money to pay off my $42,000 student loan debt, I tore into Betsy DeVos’ ridiculously bad

house for Vox.

MCMANSION HELLCERTIFIED DANKABOUTMCMANSIONS 101ARCHITECTURECONTACTARCHIVE Located just outside of Detroit, this 5 bed, 4.5 bath house tops out at over 10,000 square feet. Yes, you read that right. 10,000. You’ll see why later. Anyways, if you want to purchase said house, it can be all yours for just under $1,000,000. A steal!

MCMANSIONS 101

McMansions 101. THE 10 CIRCLES OF MCMANSION HELL (THE MCMANSION SCALE) McMansions 101 #1: What Makes a McMansion Bad Architecture? McMansions 101 #2: McMansion Front Entries. McMansions 101 #3: Columns. MCMANSIONS 101: ROOFS Roof Rule No 1: 2 shapes, and 2 shapes only (on the front elevation) Literally 90% of house roofs are either gabled or hipped. Like seriously, go out for a walk and look at the roofs. Gables and hips, y’all, gables and hips. Before we bring in the offenders, let’s look at some happy houses: Here is a happy house with one roof shape:

cross

CERTIFIED DANK™

Certified Dank™ Want to binge on fugly houses? You’ve come to the right place. Here is the archive of Certified Dank™ McMansions of the Week: Howard County, MD #1 Cook County, IL Oakland County, MCMANSION HELL: GREAT BRITAIN EDITION (PART 1 OFSEE MORE ON

MCMANSIONHELL.COM

CORONAGRIFTING: A DESIGN PHENOMENON MCMANSIONS 101: WHAT MAKES A MCMANSION BAD... The McMansion has no concept of mass. McMansions often have so many secondary masses that the primary mass is reduced to a role of filling in gaps between the secondary masses. An example: Another issue with McMansions and mass is the use of too many voids. Some McMansions are so guilty of this they resemble swiss cheese in appearance. THE MAIL ORDER AMERICAN DREAM: AN Identifying Kit Houses Step 1: The Three Common Site Locations. One of the easiest ways to begin one’s search for mail order houses is knowing where to look in the first place. Kit Houses are most commonly found in these areas: 1.) First Generation Suburbs (Streetcar and Railroad Suburbs) (1906-1930) WORST OF MCMANSIONS: CANADA EDITION Worst of McMansions: Canada Edition. Jan 29, 2017. 1,943 notes. Hello Friends! Today I’m going to do something different. As you all know, this past week has been very stressful for those of us living in the USA. Rather than write a document about mortgages and bonds, I’ve decided to do something a lot more light-hearted: ugly house BETSY DEVOS’S SUMMER HOME DESERVES A SPECIAL PLACE Betsy DeVos’s summer home deserves a special place in McMansion Hell. Kate Wagner dissects the shingle-style Michigan summer home of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. In order to earn money to pay off my $42,000 student loan debt, I tore into Betsy DeVos’ ridiculously bad

house for Vox.

ABOUT | MCMANSION HELL About. McMansionHell is a bi-weekly blog that aims to educate the masses about architectural concepts, urban planning, environmentalism and history by making examples out of the places we love to hate the most: the suburbs. By alternating comedy-oriented takedowns of individual houses with weekly informative essays about architecture,

urbanism

MCMANSION HELL AROUND THE WORLD: WHERE AND WHY DO I receive emails all the time about McMansions built in countries outside the USA. I’m here this week to briefly examine where and why McMansions are commonly constructed (and why the US has the vast majority of the world’s gross houses.) For the next five Sunday posts, I will be doing a special on the houses of each of these

countries: Canada.

CERTIFIED DANK™

Certified Dank™ Want to binge on fugly houses? You’ve come to the right place. Here is the archive of Certified Dank™ McMansions of the Week: Howard County, MD #1 Cook County, IL Oakland County, CORONAGRIFTING: A DESIGN PHENOMENON While the mask Coronagrift continues to this day, the Coronagrifting phenomenon had, by early March, moved to other domains of design. Consider the barrage of asinine PR fluff that is the “Public Service Announcement” and by Public Service Announcement, I mean “A Designer Has Done Something Cute to Capitalize on Information Meant to

Save

50 STATES OF MCMANSION HELL: OAKLAND COUNTY Greetings friends! Believe me - believe me - this house is going to make up for Monday’s missed post (I’m going to move away from theory next week but more about that later).This may be one of the tackiest McMansions in McMansion Hell history.Behold, my friends, behold! This incredible chateau, built in 1994, boasts 5 bedrooms and 5.5 baths, totaling around 5,300 square feet. MCMANSION HELL FROM A TO Z (PART TWO: I-P) McMansion Hell from A to Z (Part Two: I-P) Oct 2, 2016. 863 notes. Greetings! Even though I’m currently suffering from a nasty cold, I have yet to miss a Sunday post, and this week is no exception. Last week, we covered McMansion Hell from letters A-H , and this week furthers our journey through letters I through P in the alphabet of

ugly.

MCMANSIONS 101: WINDOWS Window Win #1: Use the same window and trim styles across the entire elevation. Ok, this is SUCH an easy rule to follow, but still every friggin time, McMansions foul this up in the worst way. Like, following this rule can make a generally ugly house look pretty ok: In the case of this house, the muntin spacing is the same for all windows WHAT THE HELL IS POSTMODERNISM? This is the crux of the failure of PoMo: Postmodernism was about using architectural ornament within a modern context because we have emotional connections and connotations to architectural ornament. These buildings were about saying through ornament “I AM A HOUSE” or “I AM A BANK” mixed, of course, with a bit of clever architectural humor. LOOKING AROUND: AMERICAN FOURSQUARES Looking Around: American Foursquares No single-family home (besides, perhaps, the ranch or the McMansion) is as instantly recognizable as the American Foursquare. Named both for its MCMANSIONS 101: DORMERS McMansions 101: Dormers No, a dormer is not someone who lives in a dorm. Basically, a dormer is a structure that projects from the roof mass and has its own roof, windows, and sometimes walls. Dormers MCMANSION HELLCERTIFIED DANKABOUTMCMANSIONS 101ARCHITECTURECONTACTARCHIVE The McMansion Hell Yearbook: 1978. Feb 2, 2021. 3,424 notes. Howdy Folks! Today’s house comes to us from Iredell County, North Carolina, and trust me, it is quite a doozy - just in time for Valentines Day, too! If you don’t fall in love with it, I don’t know what to tell you. MCMANSIONS 101: ROOFS Roof Rule No 1: 2 shapes, and 2 shapes only (on the front elevation) Literally 90% of house roofs are either gabled or hipped. Like seriously, go out for a walk and look at the roofs. Gables and hips, y’all, gables and hips. Before we bring in the offenders, let’s look at some happy houses: Here is a happy house with one roof shape:

cross

MCMANSIONS 101

McMansions 101. THE 10 CIRCLES OF MCMANSION HELL (THE MCMANSION SCALE) McMansions 101 #1: What Makes a McMansion Bad Architecture? McMansions 101 #2: McMansion Front Entries. McMansions 101 #3: Columns. MCMANSION HELL: GREAT BRITAIN EDITION (PART 1 OFSEE MORE ON MCMANSIONHELL.COMMCMANSION HELL BLOGMCMANSION HELL CALIFORNIAMCMANSION HELL REDDITMCMANSION HELL TUMBLRMCMANSION HELL WEBSITE 21 PHOTOS THE MAIL ORDER AMERICAN DREAM: AN Identifying Kit Houses Step 1: The Three Common Site Locations. One of the easiest ways to begin one’s search for mail order houses is knowing where to look in the first place. Kit Houses are most commonly found in these areas: 1.) First Generation Suburbs (Streetcar and Railroad Suburbs) (1906-1930)

CERTIFIED DANK™

Certified Dank™ Want to binge on fugly houses? You’ve come to the right place. Here is the archive of Certified Dank™ McMansions of the Week: Howard County, MD #1 Cook County, IL Oakland County, MCMANSIONS 101: WHAT MAKES A MCMANSION BAD... The McMansion has no concept of mass. McMansions often have so many secondary masses that the primary mass is reduced to a role of filling in gaps between the secondary masses. An example: Another issue with McMansions and mass is the use of too many voids. Some McMansions are so guilty of this they resemble swiss cheese in appearance. ENCINO, CA | MCMANSION HELL Encino, CA. Sep 22, 2016. 1,142 notes. This week’s Certified Dank™ McMansion comes to us from Encino, Los Angeles, California. Encino has been recommended to me time and time again, so I figured it was time to see what all the fuss is about. And fuss they should. MCMANSIONS 101 SPECIAL EDITION: MANSION VS... Part One: Age. Most “true” mansions are generally old, as the McMansion did become a phenomenon until the 1980s. Few large houses were built in the 1970s because of the energy crisis, and large houses above 3000 square feet built before 1980 and especially before 1960 were usually designed by architects. However, there are many, many

homes

BETSY DEVOS’S SUMMER HOME DESERVES A SPECIAL PLACEBETSY DEVOS HOME IN MICHIGANKATE WAGNER MCMANSION HELL50 STATES OF MCMANSION HELLBLOG MCMANSION HELLBETSY DEVOS SUMMER COTTAGEMCMANSION HELL DEVOS Betsy DeVos’s summer home deserves a special place in McMansion Hell. Kate Wagner dissects the shingle-style Michigan summer home of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. In order to earn money to pay off my $42,000 student loan debt, I tore into Betsy DeVos’ ridiculously bad

house for Vox.

MCMANSION HELLCERTIFIED DANKABOUTMCMANSIONS 101ARCHITECTURECONTACTARCHIVE The McMansion Hell Yearbook: 1978. Feb 2, 2021. 3,424 notes. Howdy Folks! Today’s house comes to us from Iredell County, North Carolina, and trust me, it is quite a doozy - just in time for Valentines Day, too! If you don’t fall in love with it, I don’t know what to tell you. MCMANSIONS 101: ROOFS Roof Rule No 1: 2 shapes, and 2 shapes only (on the front elevation) Literally 90% of house roofs are either gabled or hipped. Like seriously, go out for a walk and look at the roofs. Gables and hips, y’all, gables and hips. Before we bring in the offenders, let’s look at some happy houses: Here is a happy house with one roof shape:

cross

MCMANSIONS 101

McMansions 101. THE 10 CIRCLES OF MCMANSION HELL (THE MCMANSION SCALE) McMansions 101 #1: What Makes a McMansion Bad Architecture? McMansions 101 #2: McMansion Front Entries. McMansions 101 #3: Columns. MCMANSION HELL: GREAT BRITAIN EDITION (PART 1 OFSEE MORE ON MCMANSIONHELL.COMMCMANSION HELL BLOGMCMANSION HELL CALIFORNIAMCMANSION HELL REDDITMCMANSION HELL TUMBLRMCMANSION HELL WEBSITE 21 PHOTOS THE MAIL ORDER AMERICAN DREAM: AN Identifying Kit Houses Step 1: The Three Common Site Locations. One of the easiest ways to begin one’s search for mail order houses is knowing where to look in the first place. Kit Houses are most commonly found in these areas: 1.) First Generation Suburbs (Streetcar and Railroad Suburbs) (1906-1930)

CERTIFIED DANK™

Certified Dank™ Want to binge on fugly houses? You’ve come to the right place. Here is the archive of Certified Dank™ McMansions of the Week: Howard County, MD #1 Cook County, IL Oakland County, MCMANSIONS 101: WHAT MAKES A MCMANSION BAD... The McMansion has no concept of mass. McMansions often have so many secondary masses that the primary mass is reduced to a role of filling in gaps between the secondary masses. An example: Another issue with McMansions and mass is the use of too many voids. Some McMansions are so guilty of this they resemble swiss cheese in appearance. ENCINO, CA | MCMANSION HELL Encino, CA. Sep 22, 2016. 1,142 notes. This week’s Certified Dank™ McMansion comes to us from Encino, Los Angeles, California. Encino has been recommended to me time and time again, so I figured it was time to see what all the fuss is about. And fuss they should. MCMANSIONS 101 SPECIAL EDITION: MANSION VS... Part One: Age. Most “true” mansions are generally old, as the McMansion did become a phenomenon until the 1980s. Few large houses were built in the 1970s because of the energy crisis, and large houses above 3000 square feet built before 1980 and especially before 1960 were usually designed by architects. However, there are many, many

homes

BETSY DEVOS’S SUMMER HOME DESERVES A SPECIAL PLACEBETSY DEVOS HOME IN MICHIGANKATE WAGNER MCMANSION HELL50 STATES OF MCMANSION HELLBLOG MCMANSION HELLBETSY DEVOS SUMMER COTTAGEMCMANSION HELL DEVOS Betsy DeVos’s summer home deserves a special place in McMansion Hell. Kate Wagner dissects the shingle-style Michigan summer home of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. In order to earn money to pay off my $42,000 student loan debt, I tore into Betsy DeVos’ ridiculously bad

house for Vox.

ARCHITECTURE

Architecture Fun primers on architectural history. Who said learning has to be boring? What the Hell is Postmodernism? What the Hell is Modern Architecture? (Part 1) What the Hell is Modern 50 STATES OF MCMANSION HELL: TOP 10 WAUKESHA Jun 13, 2019. 3,231 notes. Howdy Folks! We’re continuing our out-of-order-for-dramatic-effect tour of the 50 States of McMansion Hell today with perhaps one of the most underrated McMansion counties in the country: Waukesha County, Wisconsin. These houses were so bizarre it was hard to choose just one to do a takedown of. MCMANSION HELL FROM A TO Z: PART ONE (A-H) Part One is A-H; Part Two will be I-P; Part Three will be Q-Z. By the end of this three-part series, my hope is that even the least architecturally inclined (e.g. my relatives) will be able to identify a McMansion from a mile away, and the world will be a better ENCINO, CA | MCMANSION HELL Encino, CA. Sep 22, 2016. 1,142 notes. This week’s Certified Dank™ McMansion comes to us from Encino, Los Angeles, California. Encino has been recommended to me time and time again, so I figured it was time to see what all the fuss is about. And fuss they should. MCMANSIONS 101: WINDOWS Window Win #1: Use the same window and trim styles across the entire elevation. Ok, this is SUCH an easy rule to follow, but still every friggin time, McMansions foul this up in the worst way. Like, following this rule can make a generally ugly house look pretty ok: In the case of this house, the muntin spacing is the same for all windows 50 STATES OF MCMANSION HELL: OAKLAND COUNTY Greetings friends! Believe me - believe me - this house is going to make up for Monday’s missed post (I’m going to move away from theory next week but more about that later).This may be one of the tackiest McMansions in McMansion Hell history.Behold, my friends, behold! This incredible chateau, built in 1994, boasts 5 bedrooms and 5.5 baths, totaling around 5,300 square feet. MCMANSION HELL FROM A TO Z (PART TWO: I-P) McMansion Hell from A to Z (Part Two: I-P) Oct 2, 2016. 863 notes. Greetings! Even though I’m currently suffering from a nasty cold, I have yet to miss a Sunday post, and this week is no exception. Last week, we covered McMansion Hell from letters A-H , and this week furthers our journey through letters I through P in the alphabet of

ugly.

WORST OF MCMANSIONS: CANADA EDITION Worst of McMansions: Canada Edition. Jan 29, 2017. 1,943 notes. Hello Friends! Today I’m going to do something different. As you all know, this past week has been very stressful for those of us living in the USA. Rather than write a document about mortgages and bonds, I’ve decided to do something a lot more light-hearted: ugly house BETSY DEVOS’S SUMMER HOME DESERVES A SPECIAL PLACE Betsy DeVos’s summer home deserves a special place in McMansion Hell. Kate Wagner dissects the shingle-style Michigan summer home of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. In order to earn money to pay off my $42,000 student loan debt, I tore into Betsy DeVos’ ridiculously bad

house for Vox.

WHAT THE HELL IS POSTMODERNISM? This is the crux of the failure of PoMo: Postmodernism was about using architectural ornament within a modern context because we have emotional connections and connotations to architectural ornament. These buildings were about saying through ornament “I AM A HOUSE” or “I AM A BANK” mixed, of course, with a bit of clever architectural humor.

McMansion Hell

About McMansions 101 Architecture Certified Dank™ Patreon! Store! Contact

Archive

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Aug 28, 2019

1,908 notes

I MET THE LAWYER TO MY FOYER THE NUB TO MY ROOFLINE THE CAR TO MY CARHOLE… WHAT I’M TRYING TO SAY IS I’M ENGAGED NOW edit: we will not be buying a mcmansion for obvious reasons but if you’re feeling the love tonight, you can donate a coffee to the kate wagner & partner tiny and modest wedding fund: www.ko-fi.com/mcmansionhell

!

(i’m a writer and he’s a high school math teacher so we could use all the help we can get.) mazel tov to clarify this does not impact the mcmansion blog

weddings

cost too much money

50 STATES OF MCMANSION HELL: CAMPBELL COUNTY, WYOMING

Aug 17, 2019

4,198 notes

Howdy, folks! It’s time for us to go home, (big, ugly) home on the range. That’s right: It’s time for Wyoming. Now, when I think Wyoming, I think of rolling hills, ranches, incredible landscapes, and also that book about cowgirls that Dick Cheney’s wife wrote

.

On that note:

This beautiful 5 bed/4.5 bath 6,000 square foot house was built in 2002. It can be all yours for around $700,000 USD. Let’s mosey on down through this here estate. DIVORCE LAWYER FOYER/LIVING ROOM Now, I’ve been an architecture enthusiast for about a decade of my short, two and a half decade life and never have I seen something as both absurd and patently useless as whatever the hell that thing separating the foyer and the living room is. Does it have a structural purpose? No. Does it have an aesthetic purpose? Also no.

KITCHEN

(Running for president voice) “Folks, when I become president, I assure you that the injustice - the absolute tyranny -  that is the island stovetop/wall oven combo will finally–” (crowd cheering) “– and I mean finally, be put deep into the ground where it

belongs.”

DINING ROOM

The aged bronze chandeliers must have been on ultra clearance. Personally, as someone who loves a good deal, I cannot shame them for

this.

MASTER BEDROOM

What I can’t determine is what they were going for with the sponge paint on the walls. My closest approximation is tree bark, in which case what we see before us in fact is deeply offensive to the trees, who are innocent and don’t deserved to be involved in any of this.

MASTER BATHROOM

I don’t care _how _nostalgic we as a culture get for the late nineties/early aughts, sponge paint should _never come back_. One, it’s sponge paint. Two, it is ridiculously labor intensive and frankly we could all be spending our last few years on this still-habitable earth doing something more worthwhile with our time, such as going outside or falling in love or destroying our brains on

the internet.

YOU ARE SERIOUSLY NOT READY FOR THIS When making this picture I realized I desperately need to log off.

BATHROOM 2

Computer, _enhance_. Ok but you can’t even read that in the shower. If you’re that desperate for prophetic, non-digital bathroom reading material, buy a bottle of Dr. Bronners or, like, a copy of _War and Peace_.

BASEMENT

Poor Little Julie. :( Well, that wraps up our interior. Now, for the final frontier, on the

frontier:

REAR EXTERIOR

Somehow this house looks more like it’s made out of cardboard than the many, many houses on this blog that also look like they’re made

out of cardboard.

Anyways, that does it for Wyoming! Stay tuned for next week’s Brutalism Post, Part II: What Brutalism is Not. Have a great weekend,

folks.

IF YOU LIKE THIS POST, AND WANT TO SEE MORE LIKE IT, CONSIDER SUPPORTING ME ON PATREON,

ESPECIALLY

IF YOU ALSO LIKE DONOTEAT01′S CONTENT ON YOUTUBE

,

BECAUSE WE WILL BE DOING A LIVESTREAM COLLAB ON PATREON ON AUGUST 25TH, 2019 FROM 8-10PM EST!!! There is a whole new slate of Patreon rewards, including Good House of the Week, Crowdcast streaming, and bonus essays! Not into recurring donations or bonus content? Consider the tip jar! Or,Check out the McMansion Hell Store ! 100% of the proceeds from the McMansion Hell store go to charity! COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: All photographs are used in this post under fair

use

for the purposes of education, satire, and parody, consistent with 17 USC §107. Manipulated photos are considered derivative work and are Copyright © 2019 McMansion Hell. Please email kate@mcmansionhell.com before using these images on another site. (am v chill about this)

architecture design

mcmansion

mcmansions

bad architecture

ugly houses

interior design

2000s

Jul 18, 2019

129 notes

ncmodernist.org

KATE WAGNER - MCMANSION HELL LIVE AT MOTORCO! A Fundraiser for NC Modernist Houses Howdy folks! If you’re in the NC area next Tuesday, come and see me talk about McMansions as well as do a live house roast at Motorco in Durham. The ticket sales go to fund NC Modernist Houses, a nonprofit that works to preserve the heritage of architectural modernism in

North Carolina.

When: Tuesday, July 23, 6pm Where: Motorco, 723 Rigsbee Avenue, Durham Tickets: Advance - $29

At the door - $39

VIP - $99 (you get to throw axes at pictures of McMansions with me

afterward lol)

See y’all there!

THE BRUTALISM POST, PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

Jul 17, 2019

1,817 notes

This is part one of a five-part post about Brutalism. University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth campus by Paul Rudolph. Photo via Library of Congress No style of architecture so passionately divides even the most good-natured and level-headed people as Brutalism. The discourse surrounding Brutalism being “good” or “bad” is fierce and polemical. The “for” crowd lobbies on BOTH AESTHETIC GROUNDS – posting pictures of incredible and obscure structures and saying “I mean LOOK at this” – AS WELL AS POLITICAL ONES, citing in particular, how Brutalism was used to house thousands of people during

the postwar period.

On the other hand, the “against” crowd brings up the FAILED URBANISM of Le Corbusier that gave us the freeways and slum clearance that split and displaced entire swaths of city fabric, proclaiming that only architects or architecture enthusiasts like Brutalism, and that this is a testament to how OUT OF TOUCH THEY ARE WITH EVERYDAY PEOPLE. “If you had to live or work in these buildings,” they say, “you’d feel differently.” Unité d'Habitation by Le Corbusier. Photo by Thomas Nemeskeri, via

Flickr

(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

I’ve been a spectator to this debate since I first lurked in the Skyscraper City forums as a high school freshman, ten years ago, when Brutalism itself sparked the interest in architecture that brings me here today. I have, as they say, heard both sides, and when asked to pick one, my response is unsatisfying. Though my personal aesthetic tastes fall on the side of “Brutalism is good,” I THINK THE ACTUAL ANSWER IS  IT’S DEEPLY, DEEPLY COMPLICATED. STILL, WHAT IS IT ABOUT BRUTALISM THAT MAKES IT SO DIVISIVE? Why does a short-lived substyle of modern architecture elicit such vehement passion in so many people? What does it even mean for a style of architecture to be “good” or “bad”? You can see why I’m drawn to finally sitting down and penning this series, which has been simmering at the back of my mind since I started McMansion Hell three years ago. (By the way, Happy Birthday to this blog!!!) Brutalism has a special way of inspiring us to ask big and difficult questions about architecture. “Is Brutalism good?” is really a question of “is any kind of architecture good?” - is architecture itself good? And what do we mean by good? Are we talking about mere aesthetic merits? Or is it more whether or not a given work of architecture satisfies the purpose for which it was built? Can architecture be morally good? IS THERE A RIGHT OR WRONG WAY TO MAKE, OR INTERPRET, A BUILDING? Ferrier Estate, a now-demolished social housing complex in South London. Photo by Tim Slessor via Flickr

(CC BY-NC 2.0)

I HAVE BAD NEWS FOR YOU: THE ANSWERS TO ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS ARE COMPLICATED, NUANCED, AND UNSATISFYING. In today’s polemical and deeply divided world of woke and cancelled, nuance has gotten a bad rap, having been frequently misused by those acting in bad faith to create blurred lines in situations where answers to questions of morality are, in reality, crystal clear. This is not my intention

here.

For centuries, the philosophical discipline of aesthetics has tried in vain to articulate some kind of clearly defined standard by which we can delineate whether or not a work of art is good, bad, moral or amoral. Architecture makes this even more complicated because unlike literature, painting, music, or art, we have to live, work, and exist in architecture. Not only does the question of WHETHER OR NOT WE CAN SEPARATE THE ART FROM THE ARTIST EXIST IN ARCHITECTURE, so to do questions of whether or not we can separate the building from the politics, from the culture, from the time period, from the urbanism, from the socioeconomic system, from the entire contents of everyday life in which it exists. Orange County Government Center, Perspective Drawing, by Paul Rudolph. Photo via the Library of Congress. Existential questions aside, there are other reasons to write about Brutalism. First, while we’ve been hemming and hawing about it online, WE’VE LOST PRICELESS EXAMPLES OF THE STYLE TO EITHER DEMOLITION OR CANNIBALISTIC RENOVATION, including Paul Rudolph’s elegant Orange County Government Center, Bertrand Goldberg’s dynamic Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago, and the iconic Trinity Square, Gateshead complex, famous for the role it played in the movie Get Carter. My hope is that by bringing up the nuances of Brutalism before a broad and diverse audience, other buildings on the chopping block

might be spared.

On an even broader note, I think Brutalism is worth writing about simply because a lot of people are RIGHTLY CONFUSED AS TO WHAT IT EVEN _IS_.  The common practice of identifying Brutalism by the presence of a material - reinforced concrete - too broadly defines a style that belongs to a specific era and architectural praxis. There are so many buildings and styles called Brutalist that are not Brutalist that I’ve devoted the first two installments of this series to the subject “WHAT BRUTALISM IS NOT,” followed, of course, by “WHAT IS BRUTALISM?” The goal is that these two essays will be educational and interesting (with the added bonus of providing the reader with an arsenal of information that will make them as insufferable at dinner

parties as I am.)

The third part in this series is devoted to THE PEOPLE OF BRUTALISM - the architects, politicians, planners, writers, and philosophers, who signed their names to an architectural movement that spanned the globe. Finally, the last installment gathers all this information together and answers the question we’ve all been waiting for: IS

BRUTALISM GOOD?

The Kyoto International Conference Center, designed by Sachio Otani. Photo by Chris Guy, via Flickr.

(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

This is a series on Brutalism, but Brutalism itself demands a level of inquiry that goes beyond defining a style. REALLY, THIS IS A SERIES ABOUT ARCHITECTURE, AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE WORLD IN WHICH IT EXISTS. Architects, as workers, artists, and ideologues, may dream up a building on paper and, with the help of laborers, erect it in the material world, but this is only the first part of the story. THE REST IS WRITTEN BY _US_, THE PEOPLE WHO INTERACT WITH ARCHITECTURE as shelter; as monetary, cultural, and political capital; as labor; as an art; and, most broadly, as that which makes up the backdrop of our beautiful, complicated human lives.

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for the purposes of education, satire, and parody, consistent with 17 USC §107. Manipulated photos are considered derivative work and are Copyright © 2019 McMansion Hell. Please email kate@mcmansionhell.com before using these images on another site. (am v chill about this)

architecture design

brutalism

brutalist architecture

architecture

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architecture

theory

aesthetics

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