Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture
(www.currentaffairs.org)
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (23)
sorted by:
But which is the most capitalist of styles?
The McMansion?
Or the split level?
Not an idle question here. There were two decades in America where quite literally 90% of the new houses were either split ranch or split foyer. You can drive around cities and identify the midcentury developments by when the house start looking samey.
Creating similar structures makes it easier and faster to expand. I live in a area where the houses age start around 1850 and they all look similar with near identical layouts.
Yes that was the Sears influence.
Back in the day you could order whole houses. The height of that era was about 1890 to the 1920's (and then briefly again after the war). You could order a precut house, shipped via boxcar. The whole concept died out when portable power tools and delivery trucks with cranes became practical after the war, at which point it was easier to just buy whole stacks of dimensional and sheetrock and build on site.