I totally understand the whole "McMansions are bad architecture" thing...
However, something about it really bothers me. There was an episode of 99% Invisible where the guest was talking about their McMansions blog and how it makes fun of these Horrid dwellings. The whole thing stank of classist elitism. The Wrong Type of people were getting the chance to design and build large houses, and of course they're applying their Bad Taste that's neither Genuine nor Authentic. They don't know about the traditions of Fine Architecture so of course they were doing it all wrong...how embarrassing for them!
Edit: It sounds like a lot of the way I interpreted this could come from my background as someone who's transitioned from lower working class to solidly middle class, and so I'm applying that defensively even though (thank God!) I don't live in an Embarassing McMansion. In fact I'm now considering the blog as more of an educational campaign where an expert in the field is railing against problematic and widespread trends in that field. It has less to do with transitions between class and more to do with the decline of an important field of engineering and design as something that people value. I think the word McMansions itself is a bit of a disservice to the purpose of the blog, with its "slobs vs snobs" / Beverly Hillbillies connotations.
I grew up in Northern Virginia among these McMansions, and frankly I don't buy the elitism angle. These folks have a lot of money (top 5% at least, if not even top 1%) and are among the best educated in the country. And these aren't dwellings driven by the need for functionality. It's not like people here have big families they need to house (empty nesters can afford them more readily than people with families!). They're designed, instead, to be conspicuous consumption. If you can't ridicule them for lacking taste you're basically saying that taste doesn't exist and everything is always subjective.
Additionally, McMansions are often not very functional. As much as I would appreciate more space, I've been in enough McMansions to appreciate how important a well-built and well-designed house is. Completely ignoring scale doesn't just make McMansions aesthetically unpleasant, it them uncomfortable or completely unsuitable for most of the things we use a house for as well.
If you spend any time in a McMansion, you will start to notice little things that just feel wrong. The fridge will be placed on the complete opposite side of the room from the island with the stove in it. Closets will be placed in the middle of a wall, creating a room where the bed cannot be placed against any walls. Rooms will be designed without any sense of a traffic pattern, and you'll find that it's impossible to place a couch in your den because it's basically a 30 foot wide hallway because of where the doors are. The dishwasher will block access to the sink when open.
A lot of these things are probably unnoticeable to the owners because of their lifestyle. I know friends whose parents have literally never used a single pot or pan that they own.
Around me McMansions seem to stay on the market forever compared to houses of a similar price. A ton were built where I grew up in the 2002-2007 time frame, and nobody wants to live in them. They neglect literally everything that makes a house a home for the sake of having as much space as possible. I would be surprised if the majority of them make it 50 years without being torn down.
I'm living in NoVa in a zip code in the top 2% of wealth in the US. (Sadly, I'm not personally in the top 2%, I just rent an apartment here.) There are McMansions all around, and they are hideous. There's no sense of design or symmetry. And this is no aspirational neighborhood--if you're buying one of these houses, you are already at the top of society.
As much as I hate looking at these McMansions, they do give me one consolation: money can't buy taste. Maybe I'll never afford that monstrosity you call a house, but at least I've got the sense to not want it in the first place.
Most of the McMansions around where I grew up in Northern Va. were fairly cookie cutter. Their lack of architectural unity seemed to be more of "We have X types of garages, Y types of base floorplans and Z types of entryways and so we'll just iterate on them for the whole neighborhood"
This combined with the rapidly rising real-estate costs meant the builders threw in some of the architectural versions of Hofmeister kinks[1] to make them look more luxurious which (IMO) only made them look worse.
> They're designed, instead, to be conspicuous consumption
This is the key point in the thread. The legitimate criticism of McMansions isn't about their architecture per se, it's about the owners. I'd go so far as to say that the bad architecture is deliberate -- its senseless variation and useless ornaments call attention to the house. This is crass ostentation and nothing more. It says, "look at me, I can afford a big ugly house (and you can't)."
yeah. i especially agree with the fact that the people who buy these huge homes don't have big families. their families are the same size as the folks down the street in a house with 1/3 the square footage.
in Los Angeles, city government keeps on approving these extremely large homes without even requiring rooftop solar panels -- houses with not just one but TWO air conditioning condensers -- because ... uh ... wait, why?
because they save energy per capita? no.
because they will house more people than the single family homes they replaced? no.
because large homes are basically high capacity production assets which empower the city to be even more globally competitive (like a state-of-the-art rechargeable-battery factory, a digital movie production facility, a high-tech startup office, etc)? no.
AFAIK, we just have a distorted capital market. Federal government policies support home loans and the ownership society. there's also a local shortage of other viable ways for investors to make a quick $500,000 profit.
As engineers and designers, we should side with her on this one. The core conceit of McMansion Hell is that these are this homes built without experts, particularly architects (but any kind of designer is absent from them). These are often big, expensive homes, where the builder and the buyer thought they didn't need the help of an actual professional.
This isn't just an American thing, but it seems particularly bad here. People spend a lot of money on homes, but try to cheap out as much as possible in expertise. No architects, no designers for the interior, no landscape architects for the yard (many greenfield McMansions are delivered with zero landscaping!) and even sometimes skipping electricians and other skilled tradesmen for upgrades and additions.
Post college I had a mentor that was in the real estate development business, not for McMansions, first time homebuyer and some developments in the next price point up (<$500K) in a major metro so I got to learn quite a lot about how this works. I am no fan of McMansions although my primary complaint is that many of them are just built so close together, not that their aesthetics are particularly bad. The style of home that I would build is not typically built by major developers like KHov or whoever.
Houses are a bit like software. Builders will typically have base plans and then depending on the price point a varying number of customizations that can be applied. The more expensive the home the more customizations offered. A really great thing about people buying McMansions is that they are all experts and know far more about building a house than someone who literally owns a company that does this. So people who sell to this demographic let the customer do a lot of driving especially on the interior. Builders can also mark up these customizations to increase margins. So really I guess bottom line here is that people want these houses. The architecture (or lack there of depending on your view) is carefully researched to appeal to people with the right amount of money to spend. Having watched this process from the builder side there seems to be little to be gained from trying to for design on to the customers as they don't want it.
I think it's a bit forward for criticizing the purchasers of these homes for the aesthetics alone. They wanted these homes and there is going to be someone who will provide it. I am yet to find modern art that I can appreciate but I am happy that others can. I love classical sculpture which I am sure someone would have a bit to say about if I stuck one in my house. If someone wants a non-functioning balcony (this I just cannot understand) to each his own. One nice feature these homes have is that they are all built together in large developments where I will rarely ever venture.
A lot of times such houses are built by large homebuilder companies. They employ architects and landscape designers. Why does it still seem like things are in such poor taste? Maybe it's because that's not what people want to buy.
>The Wrong Type of people were getting the chance to design and build large houses, and of course they're applying their Bad Taste that's neither Genuine nor Authentic. They don't know about the traditions of Fine Architecture so of course they were doing it all wrong...how embarrassing for them!
Leave out the "wrong type of people" part and you got pretty much every criticism ever. Bad movies, bad books, bad food...
The thing is, I don't believe McMansion owners need our pity. They're clearly well off and not afraid to show it. Speaking of "elitism", I'm pretty sure the author of the McMansion blog is poorer than any of the reviewed houses' owners. It's not like we're making fun of homeless people for having dirty clothes. Plus those damn houses are visible, they're part of our environment and not something you do for fun in your hobby room.
I can't get myself to feel sorry, even though I can understand a general opposition against "calling out" private individuals so publicly on the internet.
The guest on that article and the blog author are the same person.
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?
> The blog is sarcastic in nature. What's wrong with that?
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"
The person you're describing is a 23-year old woman who comes from a working-class background. Hardly elitist. McMansions are/were a status-symbol of the upper-middle class, and now they're being attacked from the bottom.
She appears to be quite well-educated in the realm of architecture and its history. I personally enjoy her blog, but you don't have to be old and rich to be a snob.
She's also a socialist, for what it's worth, and involved in lobbying for quality affordable housing. That doesn't make her immune from attacks of classism, but it might affect how one judges what she says.
(Also worth noting that McMansions are typically homes to the upper middle class and the rich, not the poor.)
I understand the concern over elitism, and many of the good examples shown on the blog are very nice houses, but in my experience there are many humbler homes that are better than mcMansions.
You can have homes that are 1200-1800 sqft. that are very easy to live in, aesthetically pleasing and (in non-metropolitan areas) quite affordable for a middle-class family.
For me, it's about homes that are easy to sell (because they check off all the boxes on some generic list) vs. homes that are a joy to live in. My impression is that there was some wisdom regarding the latter that has been lost in the last 40 years.
I thought I was the only bothered by that blog (the 99pi episode was based on it).
I agree with practically all of its conclusions (ugly, oversized, out of place, generic, etc.), but the entire thing was a bunch of worthless value judgements: this is bad, that is bad. Not: this is bad because of function, but literally "this should never happen" -- no explanation.
Real example from way back machine, from the blog's most recent post there:
A transom should never overwhelm the door or window it’s sitting above.
Here’s an example of how to transom:
And how to…not:
... that's it. No explanation, just "I'm right, they're wrong." It's just lousy, valueless criticism. Nobody would take this lazy opinion drivel from any other kind of critic.
(Separate: Do I think zillow was right here? Of course not).
I think there is a fair dose of irony in your value judgement of her value judgement of the buyers' value judgement of McMansions.
Her main points are basically unified theme and form follows function and how McMansions often break those rules (a hodgepodge of different elements, columns too large for the things they support).
Her blog also informs fundamentals of good taste in architecture. It's no different from learning what makes a classical painting good or good pacing in movies.
>>A transom should never overwhelm the door or window [...]
>... that's it. No explanation [...]
The explanation is ~'it shouldn't overwhelm it'. Of course that's a value judgement. Like saying the front bumper (aka "fender") shouldn't be too big on a car; or a persons hat shouldn't be too big for their hat (tell that to JK, https://goo.gl/images/ztdusQ).
The implicit point is that the transom is ostentatiously large, enlarged beyond the reviewer's sense of propriety.
Surely there is nothing else. It's a judgement of style?
I made the same complaints when this blog was first posted on HN. All of their rules are entirely arbitrary and subjective opinions. They give very little argument or reasoning to support them. The best they have is side by side comparisons. Where they say "Isn't the one on the left so much better?" And on all of them I completely disagree and think the McMansion actually looks better. I just don't like the "simple, old fashioned, perfectly symmetrical" aesthetic that the author worships.
Worse is that most of their advice is actually harmful. For instance they don't like windows, especially asymmetrical ones. But lots of scientific studies have found that windows improve mental health significantly in a number of ways. Sunlight is very good. Or they demand houses be symmetrical. But if I've learned anything from games like dwarf fortress and Minecraft, that's not true. While symmetry might look nice, it generally creates designs that are less practical than if you weren't constrained by it. And every rule they have is like that. Just purely aesthetic constraints that trade off against other more practical values.
Thanks, that's actually pretty helpful. I think the term McMansions has a bit of a marketing problem now that I understand the purpose of the movement a bit better.
The only relevant question is: do the people living in these houses enjoy them? Because if they do, then who cares?
I look at some of the houses on the blog and think they're really pretty. Sorry I don't have the correct sort of taste in windows or whatever. Maybe it's because I'm one of those dumb idiots that grew up in a flyover state (Iowa).
In the one you pointed out, the question arises: "Which part is the actual house?" It has a feeling of "someone stuck on this extra part here, this stairwell here, ..." particularly with the mix of the stone and stucco'd/painted exterior, the multiple incoherent roof angles, and the inconsistent Z-depth of the front of the house.
With some architecture, the more you look at it, the more it grows on you. With the picture you posted, at first glance, I had the same reaction you did -- but after I really looked at it for a while, it started to bug the heck out of me. Kind of the same thing that happens after listening to too much auto-tuned music. The effect is cool the first time you hear it, but after a while, ...
It's the other way round. The people who are living in these houses don't have to look at them. It's the people who don't live in those houses that have to look at them.
It's an insult to society when somebody builds an ugly house and everybody else has to look at it.
Settled neighborhoods are more expensive than new ones because you can avoid living next to an ugly house.
So, I tend to agree that this house does not immediately jump out as ugly, and the suggestion that it is obviously flawed does come over as snobbish.
I'm not sure I mind the mixed stone and stucco that another comment mentions. It seems like a valid aesthetic style, especially with the chosen colours.
However, there are a few weird things I do notice. The double roof gable on the right seems unnecessary and unbalanced. And there are also many random windows in different styles, and in strange places. The ones below the double roof seem particularly obviously mismatched, and the window on the diagonal portion above the main door really looks out of position.
I propose an experiement to test the elitism hypothesis: Ask a random selection of people to rate various types of houses. If McMansions are rated poorly only by "elites", then the hypothesis is true. If they're rated poorly by everyone, it's false.
There's definitely rampant classism going on here, but not in the direction you seem to think.
Her blog has an extremely mean-spirited tone, she's downright attacking people.
Her audience is accepting of that because it's directed at people who own large houses, and people who own large houses have money and are successful. In her world, it's acceptable to treat people poorly, as long as they're successful and have money.
If she were applying the same architectural critique to poorly-designed small crappy houses (which exist by the millions), she'd be getting a very, very different reaction.
Her Patreon might not be as successful, let's just put it that way.
I actually think that's a big part of the appeal of the content. Large houses are typically a source of envy, but if you can turn that large house into something to be embarrassed about, the envy dissipates and the viewership gets to feel built-up by the tearing down of the wealthy person.
My standard for how people should be treated doesn't change based on their income level, so to me this just seems mean, I think much less of her, and I don't want to read more of it.
The very nature of the houses in question are built for the sole purpose of showing some sort of opulence to the viewer. The people who buy these kind of houses look at that sort of opulence and say "yep it's got all that opulence I want" and they buy it. Now that same exact person could potentially buy something with taste, or potentially even design a house. It's not like these people are forced into having a stupid looking house.
On the contrary, you'd be hard pressed to find a lower class person with the financial freedom to buy whichever house they please, and because of that they kind of have to live in houses that are made in a more functional sense of "a place where humans can live."
The blog isn't about tearing down wealthy people, it's about tearing down shitty architecture. She showcases really great architecture as well that obviously isn't affordable.
I kind of like the McMansion property of looking like the house was built piecewise. It's a little endearing, I find. Actually, Castle Neuschwanstein was built that way - it was all built in one go with modern techniques but has a lot of different submasses. But I have to say the execution is often lacking. Proportions have never been the strong suit of evolved buildings, but there's an obsession with traditional markers of wealth (roman columns, etc) that don't really work when you don't have the money to build the other things equally large.
I felt the same way you did when I first read McMansion Hell, but despite my initial reaction I was compelled to keep reading. I came around to really like Kate. What is interesting to me is how polarizing she can be. Reading these comments confirms it.
Doesn't the whole blog specifically point out examples on each house of why they think it is bad architecture? It's not like she just makes a blanket statement that they're bad with no supporting evidence. Every single post has a ton of valid critiques. I don't really know what there is to get.
Let's be real. I'm not an architect. I'm a layperson with a decent sense of aesthetics.
60%+ of what McMansion complained about I was oblivious to.
Sure, there are some obvious things but the majority would not be accessible to someone unless they were educated in the field and taught what 'proper' aesthetics are.
Is it still a crime in some circles to wear a blazer with denim?
Not at all. A well-chosen semi-formal jacket can be serve as a great contrast to worn denim lowers. But without attention to detail, you get a pale blue polyester leisure suit jacket over black stretch "jeans". And that doesn't express playfulness, so much as a doubling down on bad taste of biblical proportions.
Robert Schumann started a magazine in which he railed against the musical Philistines of his day. We're still listening to the music of Schumann and those who he admired. The Philistines? Not so much.
Was that "classist elitism," or did Schumann just know what he was talking about?
I mean, to be fair, there isn't anything wrong with Geocities-style websites. Some of us have fond memories of the mid-90s web, and dislike the trend of shoving 20MB of JavaScript down the reader's throat before they can get to the 20KB of text they're actually looking for.
So, first, a lot of the architectural choices (especially if they were picked out by the homeowners and not by the architects) are done to ape (poorly) aristocratic and "Old Money" sorts of dwellings...so, making fun of them on a classist line is semi-acceptable.
The real problem is that the architecture is just plain bad. Space is wasted, exterior are marred by design details meant only to suggest a style of building without any of the things that make them useful, interiors waste space and destroy any efficient attempts at heating and cooling--there is no defending that.
Agreed. Driving a Mercedes is a status symbol, I don't see her complaining about the unnecessary Swarovski crystals in the headlights of an S class, but oh no those columns that "serve no function and remind of me of a bank where I keep my money" they are fundamentally different and must go.
The Washington Post ran an article/video combo today[1] about Kate and McMansion Hell, and while Kate herself didn't mention Zillow the article itself did a few times. I imagine this is what prompted the legal threat. It's an entertaining video if you have five minutes.
Also of note: Kate's twitter posts from this morning also indicate she has received threatening emails following the video[2], which is sadly not surprising.
You're probably right about the WaPo article being the trigger. I received a C&D from a massive company shortly after a mainstream news outlet covered a competitor that was engaging in shady tactics. As the entire sector depended on non-copyrightable factual data that was only available from the large company's site, everyone was shut down by a wave of C&Ds that hit over a span of 3 days.
Makes me wonder if PR firms are complicit with large companies looking to shut down small players. They feed a story upstream to someone and then the company can pursue legal action without looking petty or like they're picking on the little guy, providing some defense against the negative PR of "punching down" while still allowing them to accomplish their goal of harassing/silencing defenseless bloggers and entrepreneurs.
May also help them if they get to the stage of assessing damages, since they can say "This was not just some obscure thing in the corner that nobody noticed; they got national press exposure."
I watched it all the way through. I'm baffled as to why anyone would think she's pretentious (is it because she has a zany hairstyle?)
She's knowledgeable. She knows architecture, and she's communicating her knowledge. I don't think that makes her pretentious. It's just that we don't know as much as she does. Let's face it, a blog critiquing the shitty web design/UI choices clients make would be an absolute hit on HN.
she stretches a bit into hyperbole at times and her tone of voice isn't the best which may convey the wrong impression. throw in that a few of the homes which flashed by are actual real standards and mcmansions. Size isn't the real determinant factor even when compared with lot size. I have run into some row home remodels that will make you flinch.
I think the bulk of the problem stems from some just being too gaudy, instead of adopting what is in the region they try to bring another region in or a tv show impression home.
if by size alone then my neighborhood would qualify but the homes here are very basic and large to support big families; 4/5/6 bedroom and square footage starting in the 3k range to 5.5k. Go a few miles and you can find some 2.5k-4k homes that fit her styling fail bill just fine and they are that too inside as well.
So I tend to lump this in gaudy on the outside and just as bad inside. the idea good architects are not involved is just an industry trying their best to redirect
IANAL but we can do some harmless armchair lawyering...
The 4 Factors of "fair use"[1]:
>1. the purpose and character of your use.
Criticism, critique.
>2. the nature of the copyrighted work.
Published photos used in website blog without ads. Also, the photos were not put into a compilation book to be sold at Amazon. However, Kate Wagner does say in twitter that "this blog is my entire livelihood" so it seems that some commercial activity is happening.
>3. the amount and substantiality of the portion taken
Kate Wagner took a tiny percentage in proportion to Zillow's entire photo database. If the proportion measurement is a particular photographer's portfolio, she may have taken most or 100%.
>4. the effect of the use upon the potential market.
Does KW's usage of the photos cause economic harm to the photographers of real estate? Do the McHell photos reduce the value of photographers' other photos in their portfolio?
Doesn't seem so but there may be some additional cause & effect that damages photographers' works.
Seems like (3) and (4) would be Zillow's strongest arguments.
I looked at the Four Factors Fair Use instead of Terms of Service because the twitter image of the Zillow cease & desist letter[1] mentioned it in their arguments.
Also, one can use Zillow without ever clicking "I Agree" to a ToS so I'm not sure if that's even contractually binding or has been tested in court.
Which seems fishy to me… IANAL but without signing or hitting "I accept" to the terms, I haven't accepted the terms… I assume anyway. I could be wrong.
They did say that. But the true nature of their actions are intimidating an under-funded adversary who actually does have fair use rights to criticize their work.
Think of the slippery slope- TOS of car, can't complain about defects, TOS of prescription drug, can't say grandpa died while using it as noted in the side effects of the drug. And that's why the courts have shot down these "TOS trumps the First Amendment" cases every time.
Funny. One of the homes they showed is in my area, and I had driven by it recently (since we're thinking about moving). And they're definitely right. It's a weird mix of horribleness. Especially the kitchen with its "update", aka let's throw in a couple of premium appliances and $2k worth of marble and call it a day.
Wow. I really expected you were exaggerating but it really is terrible. There's not much square footage why the hell didn't they put in new cabinets at least?
Didn't the writer say this was one of the only kitchens shown on the blog that she likes? That doesn't mean you have to agree of course, I Just don't really know what makes a good kitchen :)
Could this be an approach to defend the blog? Community project to take fresh images of the same houses, make the images available to the site under a liberal license.
What I don't get is that the images themselves aren't even owned by Zillow. They get the pictures from the governing Multiple Listing Service (MLS). In this case, that's NorthstarMLS.
These images are available absolutely everywhere, on every real estate site imaginable.
She does have a Patreon. As much as I hate the fact that we now need to crowsource these things, I think this is one avenue for us non-lawyer-adjacent folks.
He would show photos from listings of excessively large, poorly made mansions (or 'McMansions'). He'd point out all the design flaws, and architectural mistakes, then laugh at the excessive price tag.
Apart from the humour, it was super interesting. If I look at a picture of a house, there's no way I can notice water damage, mis-matched windows, or just shitty door placement.
I guess Zwillo is salty as it could lead to lower valuations.
The blog was great. I learned a huge amount about architecture by reading it. I also laughed my ass off for hours. It was very funny, but had lots of explanation of architecture that provided the right words to google.
Likely copyright over the photographs. Realistically, it's fair use since it's transformative and used for critique. Unfortunately, fair use laws only apply in the US if you have lots of lawyer money, so they don't really matter for normal folks.
I wonder if Zillow even has standing to sue over copyright because, as far as I can tell, Zillow gains the right to use agents' photos but there is no copyright transfer.
Many states have SLAPP laws that allow frivolous claims like this to be quickly shot down. It still costs money to defend against them, but it's a lot cheaper and the victim can win it back. Unfortunately, there's no Federal equivalent, so all it takes to get around it would be to sue in Federal court. A Federal SLAPP law would really help.
I'm curious how just using a photo makes it "transformative". Those photos look straight up taken from one site and used on the next.
(I ask as someones who's flickr photos ended up on the front page of a local paper... and was mildly annoyed, but it was promoting an event I work on.. had they just asked....)
News organizations and documentaries pay lots of money to clear and use old stock news photos.
Does "used in critique" apply? If the critique was of the photos themselves that would seem to be in the spirit, but the photos are just lifted in order to critique the house.
There's still a few hits going to Tumblr and fonts.gstatic.com , but all the actual content is safely inside IPFS and being served from in there. I'll let someone else rip the external calls out.
That CFAA threat is absolutely disgusting. Seriously, what is wrong with Zillow that they think this response is even remotely okay? When you combine that threat with a response they gave the Verge, this is an absolutely chilling example of corporate malfeasance:
“Zillow has a legal obligation to honor the agreements we make with our listing providers about how photos can be used,” Zillow tells The Verge in a statement. “We are asking this blogger to take down the photos that are protected by copyright rules, but we did not demand she shut down her blog and hope she can find a way to continue her work.”
You hope she can continue her work....from a fucking jail cell?
At the same time a $600M company would be worried about bad publicity at least somewhat.
So there are many ways of fighting them. Maybe not a direct "let's see who can outspend who over a lawsuit" but something along the lines of "Are you sure you want your name on Twitter as bullying a fun and popular blogger?" kinda fight.
Most of the photos McMansion Hell posts are copyrighted by someone else. That's why most of their posts have this disclaimer in the middle:
Copyright Disclaimer: All photographs in this post are from real estate aggregate Redfin.com and are used in this post for the purposes of education, satire, and parody, consistent with 17 USC §107.
Zillow might simply be suing for infringement, in which case the Fair Use would have to hold up in court (as it is an affirmative defense)
Agreed. Looking at the wikipedia definition of fair use, it's hard to say that this doesn't apply. But zillow is not a very nice company imo so I am unsurprised.
Readit News
However, something about it really bothers me. There was an episode of 99% Invisible where the guest was talking about their McMansions blog and how it makes fun of these Horrid dwellings. The whole thing stank of classist elitism. The Wrong Type of people were getting the chance to design and build large houses, and of course they're applying their Bad Taste that's neither Genuine nor Authentic. They don't know about the traditions of Fine Architecture so of course they were doing it all wrong...how embarrassing for them!
Edit: It sounds like a lot of the way I interpreted this could come from my background as someone who's transitioned from lower working class to solidly middle class, and so I'm applying that defensively even though (thank God!) I don't live in an Embarassing McMansion. In fact I'm now considering the blog as more of an educational campaign where an expert in the field is railing against problematic and widespread trends in that field. It has less to do with transitions between class and more to do with the decline of an important field of engineering and design as something that people value. I think the word McMansions itself is a bit of a disservice to the purpose of the blog, with its "slobs vs snobs" / Beverly Hillbillies connotations.
If you spend any time in a McMansion, you will start to notice little things that just feel wrong. The fridge will be placed on the complete opposite side of the room from the island with the stove in it. Closets will be placed in the middle of a wall, creating a room where the bed cannot be placed against any walls. Rooms will be designed without any sense of a traffic pattern, and you'll find that it's impossible to place a couch in your den because it's basically a 30 foot wide hallway because of where the doors are. The dishwasher will block access to the sink when open.
A lot of these things are probably unnoticeable to the owners because of their lifestyle. I know friends whose parents have literally never used a single pot or pan that they own.
Around me McMansions seem to stay on the market forever compared to houses of a similar price. A ton were built where I grew up in the 2002-2007 time frame, and nobody wants to live in them. They neglect literally everything that makes a house a home for the sake of having as much space as possible. I would be surprised if the majority of them make it 50 years without being torn down.
As much as I hate looking at these McMansions, they do give me one consolation: money can't buy taste. Maybe I'll never afford that monstrosity you call a house, but at least I've got the sense to not want it in the first place.
This combined with the rapidly rising real-estate costs meant the builders threw in some of the architectural versions of Hofmeister kinks[1] to make them look more luxurious which (IMO) only made them look worse.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofmeister_kink
I don't know about the rest, but taste is definitely subjective.
Or perhaps you're against ridicule in general. Why is it your problem what sort of houses other people live in?
This is the key point in the thread. The legitimate criticism of McMansions isn't about their architecture per se, it's about the owners. I'd go so far as to say that the bad architecture is deliberate -- its senseless variation and useless ornaments call attention to the house. This is crass ostentation and nothing more. It says, "look at me, I can afford a big ugly house (and you can't)."
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in Los Angeles, city government keeps on approving these extremely large homes without even requiring rooftop solar panels -- houses with not just one but TWO air conditioning condensers -- because ... uh ... wait, why?
because they save energy per capita? no.
because they will house more people than the single family homes they replaced? no.
because large homes are basically high capacity production assets which empower the city to be even more globally competitive (like a state-of-the-art rechargeable-battery factory, a digital movie production facility, a high-tech startup office, etc)? no.
AFAIK, we just have a distorted capital market. Federal government policies support home loans and the ownership society. there's also a local shortage of other viable ways for investors to make a quick $500,000 profit.
also, it's a nice boost to the property tax base.
Surely you would agree that taste is subjective...
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This isn't just an American thing, but it seems particularly bad here. People spend a lot of money on homes, but try to cheap out as much as possible in expertise. No architects, no designers for the interior, no landscape architects for the yard (many greenfield McMansions are delivered with zero landscaping!) and even sometimes skipping electricians and other skilled tradesmen for upgrades and additions.
Houses are a bit like software. Builders will typically have base plans and then depending on the price point a varying number of customizations that can be applied. The more expensive the home the more customizations offered. A really great thing about people buying McMansions is that they are all experts and know far more about building a house than someone who literally owns a company that does this. So people who sell to this demographic let the customer do a lot of driving especially on the interior. Builders can also mark up these customizations to increase margins. So really I guess bottom line here is that people want these houses. The architecture (or lack there of depending on your view) is carefully researched to appeal to people with the right amount of money to spend. Having watched this process from the builder side there seems to be little to be gained from trying to for design on to the customers as they don't want it.
I think it's a bit forward for criticizing the purchasers of these homes for the aesthetics alone. They wanted these homes and there is going to be someone who will provide it. I am yet to find modern art that I can appreciate but I am happy that others can. I love classical sculpture which I am sure someone would have a bit to say about if I stuck one in my house. If someone wants a non-functioning balcony (this I just cannot understand) to each his own. One nice feature these homes have is that they are all built together in large developments where I will rarely ever venture.
Leave out the "wrong type of people" part and you got pretty much every criticism ever. Bad movies, bad books, bad food...
The thing is, I don't believe McMansion owners need our pity. They're clearly well off and not afraid to show it. Speaking of "elitism", I'm pretty sure the author of the McMansion blog is poorer than any of the reviewed houses' owners. It's not like we're making fun of homeless people for having dirty clothes. Plus those damn houses are visible, they're part of our environment and not something you do for fun in your hobby room.
I can't get myself to feel sorry, even though I can understand a general opposition against "calling out" private individuals so publicly on the internet.
Ok.
> Plus those damn houses are visible
Like the dirty homeless people? At least with homes they are on private property.
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?
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?
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"
(Also worth noting that McMansions are typically homes to the upper middle class and the rich, not the poor.)
You can have homes that are 1200-1800 sqft. that are very easy to live in, aesthetically pleasing and (in non-metropolitan areas) quite affordable for a middle-class family.
For me, it's about homes that are easy to sell (because they check off all the boxes on some generic list) vs. homes that are a joy to live in. My impression is that there was some wisdom regarding the latter that has been lost in the last 40 years.
I agree with practically all of its conclusions (ugly, oversized, out of place, generic, etc.), but the entire thing was a bunch of worthless value judgements: this is bad, that is bad. Not: this is bad because of function, but literally "this should never happen" -- no explanation.
Real example from way back machine, from the blog's most recent post there:
... that's it. No explanation, just "I'm right, they're wrong." It's just lousy, valueless criticism. Nobody would take this lazy opinion drivel from any other kind of critic.(Separate: Do I think zillow was right here? Of course not).
Her main points are basically unified theme and form follows function and how McMansions often break those rules (a hodgepodge of different elements, columns too large for the things they support).
Her blog also informs fundamentals of good taste in architecture. It's no different from learning what makes a classical painting good or good pacing in movies.
>... that's it. No explanation [...]
The explanation is ~'it shouldn't overwhelm it'. Of course that's a value judgement. Like saying the front bumper (aka "fender") shouldn't be too big on a car; or a persons hat shouldn't be too big for their hat (tell that to JK, https://goo.gl/images/ztdusQ).
The implicit point is that the transom is ostentatiously large, enlarged beyond the reviewer's sense of propriety.
Surely there is nothing else. It's a judgement of style?
Worse is that most of their advice is actually harmful. For instance they don't like windows, especially asymmetrical ones. But lots of scientific studies have found that windows improve mental health significantly in a number of ways. Sunlight is very good. Or they demand houses be symmetrical. But if I've learned anything from games like dwarf fortress and Minecraft, that's not true. While symmetry might look nice, it generally creates designs that are less practical than if you weren't constrained by it. And every rule they have is like that. Just purely aesthetic constraints that trade off against other more practical values.
Perhaps you could read this post as to why the author is picking on McMansions in particular, and their stance on elitism, and give your take.
Personally, I don't get the impression of the blog authors intent that you are receiving.
I look at some of the houses on the blog and think they're really pretty. Sorry I don't have the correct sort of taste in windows or whatever. Maybe it's because I'm one of those dumb idiots that grew up in a flyover state (Iowa).
This house: http://99percentinvisible.org/app/uploads/2016/10/12-hate-pe...
Looks really pretty to me. What seriously is the problem here?
In the one you pointed out, the question arises: "Which part is the actual house?" It has a feeling of "someone stuck on this extra part here, this stairwell here, ..." particularly with the mix of the stone and stucco'd/painted exterior, the multiple incoherent roof angles, and the inconsistent Z-depth of the front of the house.
With some architecture, the more you look at it, the more it grows on you. With the picture you posted, at first glance, I had the same reaction you did -- but after I really looked at it for a while, it started to bug the heck out of me. Kind of the same thing that happens after listening to too much auto-tuned music. The effect is cool the first time you hear it, but after a while, ...
It's an insult to society when somebody builds an ugly house and everybody else has to look at it.
Settled neighborhoods are more expensive than new ones because you can avoid living next to an ugly house.
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I'm not sure I mind the mixed stone and stucco that another comment mentions. It seems like a valid aesthetic style, especially with the chosen colours.
However, there are a few weird things I do notice. The double roof gable on the right seems unnecessary and unbalanced. And there are also many random windows in different styles, and in strange places. The ones below the double roof seem particularly obviously mismatched, and the window on the diagonal portion above the main door really looks out of position.
Edit: the points below are all fair.
Her blog has an extremely mean-spirited tone, she's downright attacking people.
Her audience is accepting of that because it's directed at people who own large houses, and people who own large houses have money and are successful. In her world, it's acceptable to treat people poorly, as long as they're successful and have money.
If she were applying the same architectural critique to poorly-designed small crappy houses (which exist by the millions), she'd be getting a very, very different reaction.
Her Patreon might not be as successful, let's just put it that way.
I actually think that's a big part of the appeal of the content. Large houses are typically a source of envy, but if you can turn that large house into something to be embarrassed about, the envy dissipates and the viewership gets to feel built-up by the tearing down of the wealthy person.
My standard for how people should be treated doesn't change based on their income level, so to me this just seems mean, I think much less of her, and I don't want to read more of it.
On the contrary, you'd be hard pressed to find a lower class person with the financial freedom to buy whichever house they please, and because of that they kind of have to live in houses that are made in a more functional sense of "a place where humans can live."
The blog isn't about tearing down wealthy people, it's about tearing down shitty architecture. She showcases really great architecture as well that obviously isn't affordable.
I don't think your argument has any basis.
60%+ of what McMansion complained about I was oblivious to.
Sure, there are some obvious things but the majority would not be accessible to someone unless they were educated in the field and taught what 'proper' aesthetics are.
Is it still a crime in some circles to wear a blazer with denim?
Was that "classist elitism," or did Schumann just know what he was talking about?
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The real problem is that the architecture is just plain bad. Space is wasted, exterior are marred by design details meant only to suggest a style of building without any of the things that make them useful, interiors waste space and destroy any efficient attempts at heating and cooling--there is no defending that.
There is a lot of space between defending bad ideas and putting up a website to mock them.
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Agreed. Driving a Mercedes is a status symbol, I don't see her complaining about the unnecessary Swarovski crystals in the headlights of an S class, but oh no those columns that "serve no function and remind of me of a bank where I keep my money" they are fundamentally different and must go.
Also of note: Kate's twitter posts from this morning also indicate she has received threatening emails following the video[2], which is sadly not surprising.
1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/the-u...
2: https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879422526698532865
https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879429709251137537
Makes me wonder if PR firms are complicit with large companies looking to shut down small players. They feed a story upstream to someone and then the company can pursue legal action without looking petty or like they're picking on the little guy, providing some defense against the negative PR of "punching down" while still allowing them to accomplish their goal of harassing/silencing defenseless bloggers and entrepreneurs.
May also help them if they get to the stage of assessing damages, since they can say "This was not just some obscure thing in the corner that nobody noticed; they got national press exposure."
She's knowledgeable. She knows architecture, and she's communicating her knowledge. I don't think that makes her pretentious. It's just that we don't know as much as she does. Let's face it, a blog critiquing the shitty web design/UI choices clients make would be an absolute hit on HN.
I think the bulk of the problem stems from some just being too gaudy, instead of adopting what is in the region they try to bring another region in or a tv show impression home.
if by size alone then my neighborhood would qualify but the homes here are very basic and large to support big families; 4/5/6 bedroom and square footage starting in the 3k range to 5.5k. Go a few miles and you can find some 2.5k-4k homes that fit her styling fail bill just fine and they are that too inside as well.
So I tend to lump this in gaudy on the outside and just as bad inside. the idea good architects are not involved is just an industry trying their best to redirect
Yeah screw these people living in their hard earned home! Their windows are wrong!
The 4 Factors of "fair use"[1]:
>1. the purpose and character of your use.
Criticism, critique.
>2. the nature of the copyrighted work.
Published photos used in website blog without ads. Also, the photos were not put into a compilation book to be sold at Amazon. However, Kate Wagner does say in twitter that "this blog is my entire livelihood" so it seems that some commercial activity is happening.
>3. the amount and substantiality of the portion taken
Kate Wagner took a tiny percentage in proportion to Zillow's entire photo database. If the proportion measurement is a particular photographer's portfolio, she may have taken most or 100%.
>4. the effect of the use upon the potential market.
Does KW's usage of the photos cause economic harm to the photographers of real estate? Do the McHell photos reduce the value of photographers' other photos in their portfolio?
Doesn't seem so but there may be some additional cause & effect that damages photographers' works.
Seems like (3) and (4) would be Zillow's strongest arguments.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=4+factors+of+fair+use
Also, one can use Zillow without ever clicking "I Agree" to a ToS so I'm not sure if that's even contractually binding or has been tested in court.
[1] https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879429709251137537
They did say that. But the true nature of their actions are intimidating an under-funded adversary who actually does have fair use rights to criticize their work.
Think of the slippery slope- TOS of car, can't complain about defects, TOS of prescription drug, can't say grandpa died while using it as noted in the side effects of the drug. And that's why the courts have shot down these "TOS trumps the First Amendment" cases every time.
http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/162143229176/50-states-of-...
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/19735-Chartwell-Hl-Excels...
Wow. I really expected you were exaggerating but it really is terrible. There's not much square footage why the hell didn't they put in new cabinets at least?
These images are available absolutely everywhere, on every real estate site imaginable.
https://photos.zillowstatic.com/p_c/IS66svl699b5v60000000000...
Don't ask me why I believe this or how I'd know such a thing, all I'm saying is I sense it in my gut.
That said, I think pornography is the basic aesthetic we're all resisting, when we hate on McMansions.
It's that instinctive reptile-brain hatred of doing nothing and getting everything, no matter how tasteless the getting renders the gotten.
He would show photos from listings of excessively large, poorly made mansions (or 'McMansions'). He'd point out all the design flaws, and architectural mistakes, then laugh at the excessive price tag.
Apart from the humour, it was super interesting. If I look at a picture of a house, there's no way I can notice water damage, mis-matched windows, or just shitty door placement.
I guess Zwillo is salty as it could lead to lower valuations.
[There's still a post up on 99% if you want to take a geez](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/mcmansion-hell-devil-d...)
It looks like the only references to Zillow ever are citations that the photos come from their website http://www.mcmansionhell.com/search/zillow
(I ask as someones who's flickr photos ended up on the front page of a local paper... and was mildly annoyed, but it was promoting an event I work on.. had they just asked....)
News organizations and documentaries pay lots of money to clear and use old stock news photos.
I do enjoy the critique though...
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http://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmeLsfKxF4dhmyX2FSGotaDPmMEqe8p3...
UPDATED HASH: http://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmUayNU49TWHMid6pSEBSKPAHsxJkTnd...
There's still a few hits going to Tumblr and fonts.gstatic.com , but all the actual content is safely inside IPFS and being served from in there. I'll let someone else rip the external calls out.
“Zillow has a legal obligation to honor the agreements we make with our listing providers about how photos can be used,” Zillow tells The Verge in a statement. “We are asking this blogger to take down the photos that are protected by copyright rules, but we did not demand she shut down her blog and hope she can find a way to continue her work.”
You hope she can continue her work....from a fucking jail cell?
So there are many ways of fighting them. Maybe not a direct "let's see who can outspend who over a lawsuit" but something along the lines of "Are you sure you want your name on Twitter as bullying a fun and popular blogger?" kinda fight.
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Many of the house images are taken off Zillow's site.
That said, it's a textbook case of fair use. McMansion Hell is pretty clearly educational / critical usage.
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http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zFONMls...