it goes: "its horrid because its trying to copy this style, here is what this style is supposed to be, and this is why it fails to look right here"
Its basically a wonderfully funny incident post mortem.
I wish my post mortems were so funny and illuminating
Is a fake column on a house any different than fins on a 1959 Cadillac?
The fins on a 1959 Cadillac are well-integrated (design-wise) on the car. It's a theme of the era and the car was designed from the ground up to look like a jet or a rocket.
The design elements in a McMansion are not well integrated (see the posts on the site) - they are added on as an afterthought because "nice houses have these things". There is no coherent style or design.
If I had to guess, I would say the "gaudy" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Gaud%C3%AD !!) design of a Cadillac will be well-regarded for at least 100 years. I don't think the design of McMansions will ever be well-regarded.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gaudy https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gaudy
I couldn't help looking it up because the idea that a single artist could stand out so much to be singularly associated with that term was tempting. I expect that is why such a false association persists.
;)
50's US cars were also exceedingly well built using high quality materials and mostly/nearly by hand..
which goes against the 'cheap / phony materials' ethos critiqued in mcmansions..
that said, plenty of people I'm sure critiqued the 'chintzy' 50s asthetic and increased use of plastics in the day..
But McMansions lack common flourishes or motifs. They share only size and a brutal ostentation intended only to say, "I have money, and taste be damned."
The best exposition I know on the suburban blight AKA McMansions is "The Geography of Nowhere" by James Howard Kunstler.
It's punching down: the builders/purchasers didn't know/care how to make architecturally sophisticated dwellings, which is no reason to make fun of someone. The commentary applies equally-well to pre-fab apartments, shotgun shacks, suburban housing developments, etc. It's poorly-targeted.
It's also elitist a.f. "Look at these gauche bungalows, drawn up no doubt by someone who never heard of Falling Water, let alone ever showered"
I generally reject the premise of punching up versus down; but McMansion Hell is emphatically not punching down. Anyone who can afford a $1 million 5000+ square foot house deserves very little sympathy for their bad taste.
No, see the first sentence where I say I generally reject the premise of the whole concept of punching up and down (I think there is such a thing as bad tactics). My point was, however, that if you're gonna use that framework, perhaps one percenters buying ugly houses aren't exactly a sympathetic group. Even more importantly, the OP misses the entire reason punching up and down is a thing. Being rich enough to afford a McMansion means you're pretty much guaranteed to be highly privileged. It'd be pretty silly, if you're going to talk about punching up and down, to believe that ridiculing the rich with bad taste is anything but a big ol' shoryuken. I mean, even I, someone who thinks you should treat people kindly regardless of background, roll my eyes at the thought of McMansion owners feelings being hurt because people think their houses are ugly.
You are disparaging people who are not as knowledgeable as you (elitist); they didn't design the homes, nor approve the development, nor set the zoning. Their casus belli is that they are wealthier than you, and unaware that they're buying the wrong kind of house.
Making fun of rich people for buying stupid stuff isn't punching up; it's making fun of their ignorance, regardless of whether they have more or less money than you, and can be equally applied to poor people making poor purchasing decisions.
I disagree with your assessment of elitism. If every "critique" is "elitism" then I really don't know how to respond.
That's a false equivalence. Shotgun shacks and suburban housing developments aren't trying to be something they're not. And that is why you don't find ironic commentary like this directed at them.
When you put on airs, you get cut down. Is that mean? Probably. Sometimes it's also appropriate.
How can you "understand that mcmansions are bad architecture" and also say "the whole thing stank of classist elitism"? The blog points fun at clearly bad buildings. Fake columns, unnecessary rooms, poor placement of re-used furniture, etc. Sarcasm is funny. The blog is sarcastic in nature. What's wrong with that?