Kate Wagner has been documenting and critiquing the architectural phenomenon of the McMansion at her blog McMansion Hell for seven years. We always get a laugh as she points out the useless or out-of-place features and the idiosyncrasies of one house at a time.
But Wagner takes a look at the bigger picture in an essay at The Baffler. She goes over the socioeconomic reasons for the rise of the McMansion, oversized, ostentatious, but cheaply-built family homes that have been taking over suburban neighborhood for decades now. Wagner thought that the McMansion trend would die out after the 2008 recession, but she was wrong. Those that came along afterward just look somewhat different. People still want their own version of the American Dream, and they want it they way they want it.
Wagner had to re-think the forces that made the McMansion ubiquitous, and makes her predictions for the continued trend of isolating one's family in a middle-class castle. It's well worth a read. -via Nag on the Lake
(Image credit: Brett VA)
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