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Hilarious "McMansion Hell" Website Tears the Architectural Style Apart With Callouts & Pictures

...while explaining design in layman's terms

By Rain Noe - August 24, 2016

in Architecture

On one end of the architectural spectrum, you've got the self-important avant garde starchitects who design alienating structures incomprehensible to the layperson. On the other end, you've got the McMansion-designing maniacs whose designs appear to have been conceived of by creating collages in Photoshop. Which is worse?

An anonymously-written website called McMansion Hell takes aim at the latter group, heaping scorn on the style while trying to educate laypeople with "weekly informative essays about urbanism, architecture, sociology, and interior design." While the scornful stuff is obviously more fun, let's start with the educational stuff:

Image credit: McMansion Hell

An article called "McMansion 101" explains the difference between a proper mansion and a McMansion, with both photographs and explanatory text. Here's an excerpt:

Mansion or McMansion: What Distinguishes the Two?

The distinctions between a Mansion and a McMansion can be divided into three categories:

1.) Age

2.) Craftsmanship (e.g. being designed for the space of the lot, the quality of the building materials)

3.) Architectural and Stylistic Integrity (how well historical design styles are integrated or reproduced, attention to detail and principles of design)

Image credit: McMansion Hell

It then goes into detail into these three categories and more. It's worth a read. While some of the points are obvious to those of us with design educations, the information would certainly be of use to laypeople, in terms of training their eyes for what to look for.

More fun are the entries, like this one, which excoriates the design of a $1.7 million home in Virginia.

Image credit: McMansion Hell

The original entry also features tons of explanatory text accompanying the photos, you can read it here.

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Roly Steedman

8 years ago

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know the rules and then break them.....just not all at once...or I the same room

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Michael Manisa

8 years ago

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Money can't buy taste. :D

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Thomas Stokes

5 years ago

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In Greenwich, London the architecture is much nicer. Empire era old naval collages can be found here and they look beautiful.

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Robert Chickey

8 years ago

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For the last 15 years or so there have a variety of builder's who have decided that they could apply their knowledge of producing a decent entry level home into a large scale higher priced home. The main problem here is they don't understand how a house should flow or why scale is important. A well designed and well built residence is an art and requires thought and a great team of like minded subcontractors. You can not take your 2,500 square foot mass production builders and architects and then jump up to a well designed home with scale, flow, and quality. It requires a completely different mind set. That is why you will continue to see the McMansions from hell. It kills me when I see a home based on volume and space instead of scale and flow. The sad thing is that this type of builder and architect can't even grasp what you are talking about. I feel for their clients when they try to sell these monstrosities and have a rude awaking about their previous choices.

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Baba Dook

8 years ago

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Really? Hilarious? Click bait garbage.

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- amunta nul
  
  Baba Dook
  
  8 years ago
  
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  Rain is the resident clickbaiter. You might even say the master baiter.
  
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