Some mindboggling architectural ugliness in the Fountain Square neighborhood of Indianapolis, collected here on Instagram.
We just got back from Indianapolis, and we spent some time in that area, where there are many old dilapidated houses — even boarded-up houses — alongside some very nicely restored houses and the things you see in those photographs. I've been trying to figure out how the crazily ugly architecture like that can happen. Is there something on real-estate television making real people want things like that? Is it possible that 50 years from now, that sort of thing will seem wonderful the way the Googie architecture of the 1950s sees to us now?
March 18, 2018
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54 comments:
You would not like my house...
But I'm not offended, since I have white privilege.
Many people of elevated taste considered Victorian architecture a monstrosity when it appeared in the nineteenth century.
Those tiny square window things are hideous and deserve to die.
Here's a relevant section from a Lileks Bleat:
"Here’s the part that made me cock an eyebrow. “(Coen and Partners) asked Salmela and Alt to design houses the echoed the vernacular materials and forms of the Mayo barns, which have small square windows.”
True. Because they’re barns. Cows live there. Cows don’t look out the window. The windows are usually on the second floor, too – they provide minimal light and ventilation. For the cows. I can imagine the owner of the 30s house in my neighborhood visiting one of these houses, and hearing the owner say “these small square windows are based on the windows in old barns.”
“Really,” the visitor might say. “Mine are round, and they’re based on zeppelin portholes.”
So they're all made out of ticky-tacky, is that it ? At least they don't all look just the same.
Wow, Althouse; considering what (I expect that) those new houses replaced, I see nothing wrong with them. And I'm pretty traditional in my architectural tastes. I do not understand at all your word choices in this post.
There is one tremendously ugly house on the Insty page; it is the last one at the bottom (that also was featured in the bubble at the top of the page). That one is a laughably ugly house.
I can't help much to explain the bizarre architecture illustrated in the link, except to say that it resembles what I have seen in public or university buildings in France. It seems to disdain the symmetry that we have all been used to and appreciate.
Maybe it's meant to convey the idea that "we," your betters, think that the "lower" classes should abandon their silly conventions.
BTW, I agree that they're ugly, and I live in Las Vegas for crying out loud. They call for Remedial Fenestration.
Anti-gentrification has jumped the shark. Now they attack it based on the "ugliness" of the homes. Some of these remind me of the homes that go up in South Jersey shore towns--boxy, but with just the right amount of Cape Coddery to not alarm the citizenry.
At least half those homes need better windows, sunlight is important.
Too boxy for the most part. There are one or two that are passable because the do have some angles. But definitely a far cry from Googie, which had a mixture of curves, lines, and angles.
Those are all in one neighborhood? Maybe if they were grouped together with no traditional houses they wouldn't look so yucky.
My neighborhood was almost all built between 1890 and 1940, with handsome postwar traditional houses west of the creek. There's one International style house built by a distant cousin that we called the wedding cake house. The handful of recent suburban-style houses also stick out, but badly, despite the historic district guidelines.
I agree with you that the houses are ugly, but I also have no love for 50's Formica kitchen tables and mid-century furniture, perhaps because my parents kept it long after it had gone out of style. What relief it was when we got stylish new kitchen furniture and an avocado green stove and fridge (in 1975 that stuff looked just fine!) I didn't have to feel embarrassed by that ugly old 50's junk when my friends came over. Now my older nieces and nephews love the 50's stuff.
Many of the cute little bungalows on Milwaukee's South Side were prefab houses ordered from Sears Roebuck. That's right, in the 1920's you could buy a house from the Sears catalog (assembly required). Although Sears apparently offered some pretty fancy homes, the ones in my family's neighborhood were simple bungalows. I doubt the educated elites thought those houses were beautiful, but Sears made it possible for many blue collar people to afford homes. And now they are prized - and expensive.
http://www.theledger.com/news/20180114/house-in-box-polk-county-homes-from-pages-of-sears
Earnest Prole said...
Many people of elevated taste considered Victorian architecture a monstrosity when it appeared in the nineteenth century. "
Many Parisians thought the Eiffel Tower completely ruined the Paris skyline.
Many people of elevated taste considered Victorian architecture a monstrosity
Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright thought so.
I blame Dwell.
Gentrification can get ugly.
Can??
We have been invaded here in Arlington by the crony developer, smart growth, walkable community, high-density urban village, white progressives who are tearing down many existing market-affordable residential areas, where many minorities live, in order to build up their utopia of a forest of no-setback 20-story concrete which has only pushed up prices beyond what said minorities can pay. Then these progressives insist that actually they are promoting "affordable housing" when in fact they are promoting government dependence for the black and Hispanic immigrant communities.
Yeah, it is ugly all around.
Houses should fit their location. I like "Territorial Style" in Tucson and farmhouse style in rural midwest.
I would not mind having my parents' house in Chicago as long as it was not in the same neighborhood.
Chicago has a housing style that is pretty unique.
Seattle has a lot of Craftsman style.
Architects sometimes get like Ed school professors and want something different just to be different.
I am very familiar with this look, I understood it to be a Scandinavian kind of modernity, and I have seen it inserting itself with good success out here in Portland's century-old neighborhoods, like Sellwood on the Southeast side.
Many of the larger houses there date from the time of their sidewalks, stamped 1912 and 1913, and then smaller lots in the 20s and 30s, all very charming and a nicely maintained area. The metro area goals of infill in order to limit sprawl and maintain open farmlands has encouraged innovations in renovating and new homestyles.
While the proportion of them stays mixed in with the historic buildings, the mix is utterly charming. But now some commercial streets such as SE Division closer to downtown are getting way full of steel and glass and the mix disappearing, it's gets a little austere.
Generally though, nicely done around here.
They look like the prefab houses that spring up on some lots after California wildfires.
Yesterday it was -- Your type needs to stay in certain neighborhoods.
Now it is -- You know what? We don't even want you in those neighborhoods. Just get the hell out.
From segregation to economic extermination. The peasantry once again at the mercy of the feudal nobility.
But don't worry. They'll get rid of those Confederate statues so it's all right.
Some of these are worse than others. It would be nice to know what they looked like originally, and just before re-doing. And what the influence of the local building codes and zoning might be.
Squares trying to be hip to appeal to hipsters superficial enough to think looks matter.
Stuff White People (Don't) Like.
BCARM: I blame Dwell.
Beat me to it, ARM. They look like slightly more down-market versions of just about every house ever featured in Dwell.
Uninteresting boxes. Beauty, or ugly, is subjective. So long as they're functional.
-sw
I get kind of a Baltic feeling with those designs. Maybe Norwegian. Build them square so the wind, ice, and snow has nothing to grab onto.
Malvina Reynolds didn't think much of that wonderful 50's domestic architecture, as I recall, possibly not for the same reasons.
I live in Indy and can tell you that this is happening in many older neighborhoods that are on the way back up. I don’t like it much either. If you have to build new, at least try to harmonize with the existing architecture.
Seems like these people are trying too hard to be the cool kids on the block.
I suspect that if you were to investigate in detail, you would find that zoning and building codes are responsible.
Many Parisians thought the Eiffel Tower completely ruined the Paris skyline.
Zactly. Many San Franciscans hated the TransAmerica Pyramid because it imposed a phallic monolith on a beautifully graceful, curvaceous, feminine city.
My thought is that the local home supply outlet was having a sale on galvanized steel sheeting or someone was stealing it from Chipotle construction sites.
I like the modern architecture going on right now. More expressionist with the angles. My old neighborhood in Houston has many examples of this.
Those tiny square window things are hideous and deserve to die.
The tiny windows indicate the owners don't yet feel entirely safe in their urban neighborhoods. Gentrification takes time.
The tiny windows indicate the owners don't yet feel entirely safe in their urban neighbourhoods.
None of them have bars on the windows, as is common in some of the less-fashionable neighbourhoods here in the Southwest.
Nordic minds want right angles and balanced sides. And no one can reason with them, so build it ugly or they will want to fix it. That's why the rich nordics sent their kids over the Alps to Italy to absorb the mediterranean usage of curves.
I've seen quite a few beach houses built that way so that the second story has a view. What kind of view do these monstrosities have?
One of the many things I've always liked about England is that newer buildings must conform to the prevailing style of the town or village. While this involves a lack of freedom, the aesthetics are so much nicer as a result.
Is it possible that 50 years from now, that sort of thing will seem wonderful the way the Googie architecture of the 1950s sees to us now?
Some will, some won’t. Based on the definition of “Googie” it seems clear that Eero Saarinen’s terminal building at Dulles International Airport qualifies, but 60 years after it was designed it still looks excellent. I’ve flown into and out of Dulles on business or for vacations, and it never really gets old.
The real question is: Are these houses liveable? Some of them don't look like it; they look like some C- architechure student's exercise, the kind where the stairs were omitted. But you can't tell for sure until you go inside. Houses are intended to be lived in; how they look from the outside is secondary. Or, if you believe The Fountainhead, they're beautiful because they're functional.
The trendy Indy gentrification looks mostly faux Eichler.
Some of those styles are not unknown in San Francisco's many square miles of tract houses. Not everything here is a Victorian or Edwardian. Or rather the vast majority isn't. The plurality is from the 1920s-30s. Many have been rebuilt and remodeled over the years.
Just looked in on one, open house near church.
@1000 sq ft plus built out garage with separate apartment in there, garden out back. 25x100 lot as usual in these parts.
Asking price $1.2 million. They will get it too. Probably more.
All the houses but the last one were the same style. The last is what I see most of around here. I'm not a huge fan of having to build in a certain way. I'm not a huge fan of either of those styles but I say of that's what you're into go for it. I think much of what I see probably got that way because of working astound zoning. I do like a willingness to use unconventional materials. Why should houses be boring. In the end I'd say, it's their money let them build what they want.
as described in "A Pattern Language", one of the most important structural elements in making interior rooms that make people want to spend time in them is having a source of natural light entering the room from 2 or more sides.
in the professors instagram link you see many ugly houses, but, also an extra effort-windows on corners- to create the crossing of light in rooms.
so, yes they wuz ugly, but at least some of them will have warmly lit interior rooms thruout the day.
I like ‘em. They have the sort of retro Midwestern vibe similar to many of the buildings that show up in your traveling cafe posts.
Ironic that hipster architecture harkens back to the days of White middle-class hegemony. Ah well, the heart wants what it wants.
"Some of those styles are not unknown in San Francisco's many square miles of tract houses."
There was a song about "ticky tacky little houses" back in the 60s that referred to the SF suburbs down the peninsula. They are pretty ugly, too.
Probably $1.5 million each.
Yes, song is "Little Boxes", Malvina Reynolds, but also sung by Peet Seeger, etc.
I can look south from our living room window and see these same "ticky tacky" houses that annoyed Reynolds zigzagging among the hills of Daly City.
Those are from the 1940s-50s.
They are cheaper than those in SF proper. $800-900K, maybe, for SF equivalent of $1.2M.
That style is a thing. Seek you out something called Dwell magazine, Professor. As wild as the site is, it's even more so if you can get your hands on a print copy ...
Most of those are ugly, but there were a handful at the link that I actually liked.
If IKEA built (sic) houses...
Ironically, IKEA just opened in Indy a few months ago.
Lileks will never run out of material.
They are building new tract houses in Denver like this. I think they're ugly too.
It seems like a bastardization of Midcentury Modern. Perhaps the owners can't afford bigger windows (or better architects).
They're queer as in odd, strange, unusual, funny, peculiar, curious, bizarre, weird, uncanny, freakish, eerie, unnatural. But they're also queer as in Queer Nation, whose stated purpose is the elimination of homophobia and the increase of LGBT visibility.
So their architectural statement seems to be:"We're Here! We're [Odd, Strange, Unusual, Funny, Peculiar, Curious, Bizarre, Weird, Uncanny, Freakish, Eerie, Unnatural, along with Disproportionate, Imbalanced, Chaotic, Broken, and Ugly!] Get used to it!"
So, I like them!
Thought most of them were nice AND better looking than the pile of bricks at the bottom.
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