December 2001 | Eyesore

Commentary on architectural blunders in monthly serial.

Have all the homebuilders in America come down with ARDS (Acquired Retarded Designer Syndrome)? Here is a typical specimen nowadays. Grain elevator meets mobile home. I especially like the way those mingy windows on the second story, right side, creep right up to the soffit. The front door for humans (as distinct from the front doors for cars) is reached by that ladder-like jumble of lumber on the left. The supergigantic Palladian window with the pop-in muntins doubles as a neighborhood heat-exchanger. This case study also illustrates a fascinating paradox of culture: the better our power tools get, and the more clever our systemization of assembly becomes, the worse our houses look. The law of diminishing returns never rests.