March 2004 | Eyesore

Commentary on architectural blunders in monthly serial.

Notice how these new "townhouses" in northern Virginia meet the street. From the ground up to about the eleven foot line, you get the ambiance of a self-storage unit. The upper stories are applique Georgian, meant to signify "historic architecture here!" The real message emanating from all this investment and effort is "no real future here." What the scene signifies is the tragic resignation of ordinary Americans to cheap falsehood in the service of an entropic economy. As America slides into the post-cheap-oil clusterfuck, houses like these will lose their value dramatically, and the people who bought them will be both stranded and ruined.