What is it that so unnerves us about McMansions? Why are they so ugly, why do we hate them, and why—despite their atrociousness—do builders keep building them? These are the questions that the blog Worst of McMansions (aka McMansion Hell, per its URL) sets out to answer. Authored by an architect who calls herself “Kate,” the Tumblr has been around only since late July but has spread across the web faster than a subdevelopment through a vacant tract of suburbia. The site catalogs the most egregious examples of terrible overbuilt architecture, delivering ridicule to these behemoths—along with a series of McMansions 101 posts, which explain patiently everything that’s wrong with them, architecturally speaking.
The site’s fans seemed to have flocked to it not just for its ability to put words to that uneasy disgust that so many have when facing these gargantuan homes. We’ve always known they were ugly, but until now we didn’t know why, exactly. A normal house, for example, is made up of a “primary mass” (the central architectural shape of the building) and a few key “secondary masses,” building-block shapes that complement and highlight that primary mass. A McMansion, on the other hand, will have so many secondary masses—gables, garages, entryways, and so on—“that the primary mass is reduced to a role of filling in gaps between the secondary masses.” Nor is the McMansion balanced; unlike a Victorian, its individual pieces don’t have equal visual weight. It is often out of scale with its small lot and out of proportion with itself: inconsistent window sizes, dormers, and gables of contrasting style.
What emerges in Kate’s McMansions 101 posts in particular is that nearly all of the sins of McMansions often boil down to the same thing: violations of order, harmony, and symmetry. What makes a normal house successful is a sense of balance, with equally weighted elements and an overall sense of aesthetic cohesion. What makes a McMansion an eyesore is its jumble of eaves, columns, oversized garages, and other compounded fiascos.
17 comments:
These things should be banned from being built anywhere in nyc. They are ugly, they house way more than 2 families usually and they take up way too much room on one property. I don't know why anyone would want to buy one of these things. I just want to know in 50 years when most of the working class in the world can't afford a house, who do these people think they will sell these houses to? The housing market in nyc is already at a peak where hardly nobody can afford to buy a house as it is, so in the next 50 years when the working class in the entire world is broke, who will be able to sell these houses and actually make a profit off of them? Let's face it, the world economy is going backwards and most people who work in this world can not afford rent or housing. who do these people think will be able to afford them in 50 years from now? They already sell for over one million dollars as it is, do you really think that someone could afford to pay 2 or 2.5 million dollars for a house in the next 50 years or so? Plus nyc will be under water within the next 150 years.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...
And a stick in the whe of the beholder , is still a stick in the eye!
It's called NEW MONEY!!
To be honest, it's really no one's business what people do on their property provided they're doing it to code, with permits, and not pulling strings. I realize those standards would eliminate a majority of the garish stuff built in NYC, but de gustibus non disputandum.
There is no objective reality.
Madonna is just as good a musician as Beethoven.
Its all relative.
[/sarc,...welcome to the post-modern age]
Check out Forest Hills. They have been tearing down traditional family homes there and building overly ornate European styled monstrosities that practically go right up to the front edge of the front yard. Where the Russians building these things are getting that kind of money, we don't care to know.
"To be honest, it's really no one's business what people do on their property provided they're doing it to code, with permits, and not pulling strings. I realize those standards would eliminate a majority of the garish stuff built in NYC, but de gustibus non disputandum"
Actually, it is everyone's business. No one could or should be able to intervene and actually stop these monstrosities, which are unfortunately the owner's "right" to do, but it certainly is my right to think they are ugly and low class, criticize them and their ignorant owners and say that they esthetically ruin my neighborhood.
We have a lot of these in Fresh Meadows too.
Actually it is everyone's business when "NEW MONEY" being used to build these ugly ass houses is attained through MEDICAID & MEDICAID FRAUD.
This is a misuse, a corruption of the word "McMansions".
McMansions refer(ed) to giant pre-fab houses, made of cheap modular parts, looking very similar to each other, built quickly, and that won't last. The McDonalds of housing - cheap and large and poor quality.
Somehow, over the last few years, the word has expanded to mean "any large house I don't like".
A well built mansion, no matter how ugly it is, isn't a McMansion. The monstrosities that are becoming so popular in parts of the city are usually solidly built, individual looking, and done to the homeowner's design.
100 years from now, these huge houses will be the "haunted houses" the author refers to. Actual McMansions will have fallen apart by then.
We need a better word for these sort of buildings, to distinguish them from actual McMansions.
To be honest, it's really no one's business what people do on their property provided they're doing it to code, with permits, and not pulling strings. I realize those standards would eliminate a majority of the garish stuff built in NYC, but de gustibus non disputandum.
Do you really think that if someone is building a house this huge on a lot that's really too small to have one of these things on it, that the owners are actually going to be following housing codes and not breaking any violations? Get real! Unless you have as many kids as the Duggar family, there is no need for anyone to have these monstrous houses unless they were really going to do something really illegal in them! Like house 4 families and call it a "legal two family home"! So yes, it is EVERYONE'S BUSINESS that these ugly things are being built! Whenever I see one of these things, I say "4 families moving in" and then I say "there goes more tax payer dollars". Why? Because that means more police, more firemen, more garbage collection, more overcrowding in the schools, less parking on the streets. So, yes it IS MY BUSINESS!
The housing market in nyc is already at a peak where hardly nobody can afford to buy a house as it is, so in the next 50 years when the working class in the entire world is broke, who will be able to sell these houses and actually make a profit off of them?
Assuming they're not underwater, these will be the new tenement houses. They may house one or two families now, but as the current owners move/die, they'll eventually be purchased by people who can't/don't want to afford them without subdividing them and renting out rooms.
See for e.g. Flushing, Woodhaven, Corona, etc.
I hope someone tells this blogger about the bukharian houses. Who can top those messes?
Res Ipsa said...
The housing market in nyc is already at a peak where hardly nobody can afford to buy a house as it is, so in the next 50 years when the working class in the entire world is broke, who will be able to sell these houses and actually make a profit off of them?
Assuming they're not underwater, these will be the new tenement houses. They may house one or two families now, but as the current owners move/die, they'll eventually be purchased by people who can't/don't want to afford them without subdividing them and renting out rooms.
See for e.g. Flushing, Woodhaven, Corona, etc.
They are already being subdivided into more than 2 families. But only one or two people name can be on a mortgage to buy something so expensive. You have to show income. How many working class people will be able to show an income of being able to afford 2.5 million dollars for a house within the next 50 years or so? I understand though that the churches buy up a lot of property too and house people in it so it makes me wonder what kind of shady crap is going on in this city that a church can buy such expensive homes.
Look at Trump's Mc Mansion....Trump Tower.
Bonwit Teller's iconic Art Deco department store, got knocked down to build his tacky tower of babble.
Now, Trump is getting his come uppance.
Megalomania and a big mouth are his undoing.
Let's hope the economy can support the builders of these oversize Mc Mansions.
It cost a bloody bundle to heat and cool them.....
especially those 2 and 3 story "lawyer foyers" that they all love to impress everybody with.
I'd seriously like to see the houses all of the commenters live in. Probably not the parogon of beautyiful architecture
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