1. Home
  2. Woodworking Forum
  3. Dark ages of architecture

Dark ages of architecture

Stumbled on this while wandering around.

formatting link

Reply to
basilisk
Loading thread data ...

basilisk wrote in news:b5q7yp4k8llz$. snipped-for-privacy@40tude.net:

+1
Reply to
Han

You know.... it's not any worse than the bastardized amalgamation of styles that is the norm for McMansions popping up all over suburbia, today.

Reply to
-MIKE-

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

I guess what I'm saying is, at least it was a style or a step in the evolution of a style.

All the McMansions around here look like someone bought home design software for their PC and just started taking chunks of different house samples they liked and assembled them together to make a big, absurd, homogenized, stew-pot of architectural vomit.

Reply to
-MIKE-

Amen. And watching them going up, they're either going to fall apart in the next 50 years or they're going to require a *lot* of maintenance.

I remember my father getting irritated when he was looking for a brick house and the real estate guy tried to sell him one with brick veneer - times have changed.

Out of curiosity, do any of you know of a builder who's actually building brick houses today? For the young'uns among you I'm talking of double wall brick with *no* wooden frame involved.

Reply to
Larry Blanchard

Sooo that's who to blame. I've been in more then one of these houses, over time. One of my BFF's and her first husband had one of them there split levels. My wife's sister and hubby had one of the ranches that are too reminiscent of these plans. Ugly, ugly.

I'm waiting for the "This Old House" updates for one of these homes. I can't wait for Tommy or Norm talk about the cheap and lazy carpenter work.

MJ

Reply to
MJ

I doubt that ... most of those tract and custom plan houses built in the fifties to mid sixties were well built with a skilled labor pool, if a bit shy or room sizes and ammenities, and much of the framing lumber was old growth and higher quality than today's plantation grown material.

Generally speaking it was in the 70's that developers/builders started focusing on a less expensive to build product, cutting corners on foundations, paint, siding, and wiring, and the labor pool had certainly become less skilled.

There are plenty exceptions for either period though.

Reply to
Swingman

Sorry, but I'll take the stud wall with veneer.

Reply to
-MIKE-

I agree. Keep in mind that those houses had to be put up very quickly, due to the fact that the boomers were being born and suburbia was exploding. What allowed them go up quickly was that simply design, not any shortcuts and lack of skill by the carpenters of that time.

Reply to
-MIKE-

Here's the deal. I studied architecture in college. Unfortunately, though I studied enough to know that the style mixing I see is horribly wrong, I didn't study enough to know how to properly explain it. :-)

You're a musician, right? Medleys are fun, occasionally, right? Like when watching the Oscars or when an artist does one at the Grammys. But let's say someone replaced all the music you like with medleys. Not just of different songs, but different styles. Every song you listened to was a medley of Heavy metal, classical, Broadway, military march, big band, fusion, country, reggae, folk, polka, and Gregorian chant. Every song. You couldn't listen to any one song in one style. You could listen to an album in any one style by one artist.

That's how it is for me to drive through most new McMansion subdivisions in any *affluent neighborhood.

(*affluent: up to their eyeballs in debt, two paychecks away from bankruptcy, because they are financing a bunch of stuff they don't want or need to impress a bunch of people they don't like.) :-)

Reply to
-MIKE-

"Mike Marlow" wrote in news:484bf$501167fe$4b75eb81$ snipped-for-privacy@ALLTEL.NET:

It is a matter of taste. Many people around here (NJ) just love Tudor- style homes. I happen to hate that, though I can appreciate a well- designed Tudor in its class. The open, Art-Deco or Scandinavian style of this drawing that Basilisk linked to is something I can appreciate just as much, if not more. But "de gustibus non est disputandum"

Reply to
Han

MJ wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@lq16g2000pbb.googlegroups.com:

I think that a recent This Old House series was on just that style of house, although vastly more upper class then Basilisk's original. They didn't spare any money redoing it.

or

And it suffered from original design, craftsmanship or material shortcomings plenty! -- Best regards Han email address is invalid

Reply to
Han

How long ago was that????

Reply to
Leon

For the record, I don't remember an instructor ever saying that... it's my opinion.

Like I said before, we'll have to include you in the next google+ hangout beer summit. :-)

Reply to
-MIKE-

Oh man! I hate it when someone self qualifies themselves with, I studied that in college. LOL. I had an employee that pulled that on me and he ended up eating crow every time he tried that. I don't care how times or accounting procedures have changed you don't break sequence when opening a new box of invoices. The one he was looking for was actually on the next shelf up from where he pulled. Idiot! And he "eventually" became a CPA.

I studied architecture in high school Oh man, I hate my self..LOL

A kitchen in the middle of the house was heavily, heavily frowned upon. We had to design and draw complete plans for a home, I put a kitchen in the middle of my house and was told that this was impossible and simply not done. I had to bring a Polaroid picture of our kitchen to class, to show that this design feature did exist, before I could proceed with the foundation drawings. Now, very commonplace.

Reply to
Leon

-------------------------------------- Last of the "Full Brick" construction (Concrete block inner, brick outer) was built in the late '40's.

After that, "Brick Veneer" construction (Frame inner, brick outer) was the standard offering.

This would have been the NE Ohio market.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

Sounds like you stopped reading after my second sentence. Did you miss the part where I clarified that I didn't study "enough?" My only point was that I know enough to know that 4 or 5 mixed styles on one house, on every house in the neighborhood, looks like shit.

Reply to
-MIKE-

Ohhhhhhhh, Actually there is a lot of strictly cinder block, filled with cement, construction down her in Texas.

Reply to
Leon

No I saw it all, BUT I had a funny, well funny now, story to tell!!! ;~)

Reply to
Leon

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.