>Disclaimer: These same principles do not always apply to Modernist or even canonically Postmodern architecture. These principles are for the classical or traditional architecture most residential homes are modeled after.

Seems like an obvious way out of this conundrum is reclassifying these so-called mcmansions as postmodern. Description instead of prescription.

Salem Mass represent whoop whoop! Been dropping mad gables — sorry, secondary mass — since 1668 for real yo. Check this witchin’ crib’s void rhythm:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:House_of_the_Seven_G...

It’s a very cool place to visit and there are a bunch of other similar houses to visit in the city, albeit less McMansiony than OG 7G, as literally no one calls it hah.

A lot of my friends enjoy sending links to this around from time to time, and for me I just don't care.

It just all comes across as very elitist navel gazing.

I don't actually care what other peoples properties look like.

It's also kind of faux populist because while the homes they are criticizing are certainly higher income for their area, a lot of these are like $500K homes in exurbs.

The people that enjoy laughing at the McMansions are like SF/NYC $5M condo owners. So it's kicking down in a way they can rationalize to themselves.

Weird that there are so many comments defending McMansions here, I would have expected the opposite. We have no problem pointing out poorly, haphazardly, or tastelessly designed tech devices and applications with terrible UIs, and tech companies with more money than design sense, but when it comes to a tasteless house, criticism is elitist gatekeeping?

I haven't read the article. It's build quality. I was in a colleague's house in Southern California over a canyon. Beautiful location worthy of an Italian villa. There is a pillar in the entry/living room area that I leaned against - it was obviously hollow and made of maybe cardboard and just decorative. Also the moldings/trim were made from styrofoam and painted over. Just crap for a multi-millions dollar home.

My apartment in Zurich will last 100+ years but their home won't last 10.

This is interesting but I was recently in England at a country house, which should be a pinnacle of architecture and it like I assume many of them were just added onto over and over again over the years leading to all the problems described. Still gorgeous, but certainly not “good architecture”. Much more McMansiony.

They're really not that bad. I used to thumb my nose at McMansions, vs the tasteful rowhouses and small condo buildings in the neighborhood I chose to live in (Richmond, VA's Museum District), but then I moved to New Zealand and discovered new depths of hideous, bland, tasteless architecture, and I miss the brick-fronted houses of my childhood. Say what you will about McMansions, they at least all have central heat and plenty of living space. Here you can spend the same amount of money as a McMansion in the Indianapolis exurbs, and be heating your tiny, bland, ugly house with firewood.

I always thought a McMansion was primarily defined by cramming too much house into a small plot.

An actual mansion is a mansion in large part because the grand building is set off by a vast expanse of lawns and gardens around it. A suburban McMansion dispenses with that and just crams the maximum amount of Roman columns, crenellated turrets and whatever else the designer thinks looks impressive into a cancerous-lookimg building that extends right out to the property line.

Interesting position, and also very opinionated.

For instance, personally I think having secondary masses dominate can make the structure look smaller and more intimate.

Like in this one, it looks like a bunch of cottages instead of a behemoth.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/3e5a80e11854cd751a1bb314a4591c87...

I live in a house with MANY "voids" aka windows. The house looks pretty stunning, and the views are spectacular.

“McMansion” is just a way for The System to shame the middle class for daring to want some space to live in, and I'm disappointed when I see anyone propagate it.

A lot of folks are defending McMansions here, but let me provide one reason why they might be objectively bad architecture: they seek to cram all of the bullet points that home buyers want into one thing, without regard for good quality design. For example, high vaulted ceilings that throw off the proportions of everything else. And then what happens is they're built quickly and poorly with poor materials. McMansions are kind of a form of enshittification. Also, when you build them all over the place, like in Utah, you hurt a whole class of people who want live in a place but don't want to have to deal with living in houses like that.

Seems to me there are two possible definitions of good architecture which might be in conflict. The American mansion-style suburban home is good architecture in the sense that the people who want to buy homes in these places and of these sizes are happy to buy these homes. It is bad architecture in the sense that architecture nerds, who do not even live near these mansions and are not affected by them, don't like them.

These ugly ass houses are monuments to the avarice of suburban America.

[2016]

> Design Principle #1 [...] The secondary masses should never compete with the primary mass.

> Design Principle #2 [...] shows multiple violating their own mass rule as good examples

While there are some ugly/gaudy houses out there, the gatekeeping behind what is a "McMansion" is subjective and silly.

Generally speaking, classifying a house as "McMansion" feels like a form of gatekeeping. If the person who lives there enjoys it, who are we to judge?

Adding onto a house over and over would probably create the same issues with inconsistency and mismatched styles. With later additions, there's at least a decent reason for that inconsistency though. McMansions lack that consistency from the start.

Exactly the thought I had. The typical (i.e. not-very-grand) English country house looks a bit like a McMansion with added ivy.

Context matters, and a big country house in England is not the same thing as a McMansion, unless it is an American inspired newbuild, and plenty exist.

In former times the servants lived in the top floors and worked in the basement floors of a city town house, with 'mews' nearby for the horses. A land owning family with servants was more like a 'small village' than a big house.

The big country house and the estate generally was built from the profits of slavery, so it was 'slavery all the way down', with the English 'slaves' called servants.

Every chunk of stone had to get there by train, canal or by horse power. Irish 'navvies' did the work, so another category of slaves.

Upkeep on these properties was a never ending task, so there was also a requirement for untold amount of handymen, gardeners and the rest of it. Just think of the lawn, which was beyond what the common man could dream of, most peasants did not have gardens as every inch of whatever land they had would be growing crops. The lawn, was a display that the landowner had that much land that he didn't need to have crops on it. With no lawnmowers or RoundUp, a lawn was quite a challenge, whereas today it is just an easy cop out, since RoundUp kills everything that is not a grass.

The whole point of America was 'no kings'. So why the McMansions is probably due to the lack of a class structure, since, if everyone (white male, northern European) is supposed to be equal, the only way to flex status is with a big truck and a McMansion with extra toys. Nobody is getting a medal from the king with a peerage in the House of Lords, are they?

Also, before WW1, in England there was a tradition of craftsmanship. All the guys that could do beautiful work in stone, wood and topiary died in WW1, taking their craft with them. This was not a problem as mechanisation meant that machines could make a lot of this stuff.

In today's world a very large townhouse or a OG English mansion is not going to work as a home. There is too much to clean, heat and maintain, plus, it actually is like a prison being that isolated. The scores of servants made sure these places were hives of activity, and viable as a community of sorts.

The McMansion is a very different beast. They are not good.

As for the article, it is useful in the context of the dreaded ballroom. Clearly there is a proportions issue. But look at the White House and how that works, with lots of people calling the place home and work. The original English Mansion was more like that, not just this stupidly vast space for two people to 'live' in.