I grew up in a Mid-Century housing tract, but once I moved to an older neighborhood and rented a 1927 bungalow with Doric columns supporting the porch, an arched doorway with a heavy wood door, coved ceilings, archways, lots of built-ins, and colored tile, there was no going back. I cringe when old homes are torn down so people can build these new boxy metal, glass, wood, and faux rustic stone disasters. I'm glad to see you are educating younger builders with this very important information. Past styles are classic for a reason.
“I can’t afford me sometimes.” I felt that haha. There are several new builds in my area where homeowners are spending north of a million dollars to get crap houses. It’s unconscionable to me when they could afford something beautiful, but they aren’t even aware it exists because we are so saturated in post 1970’s architecture that people don’t even know what they are missing (unless they watch Brent Hull).
Thanks for asserting that McMansion is indeed a style, particularly in the complicated massings and roofs, even as I think about it that walk-in to the double-height great room in back. It may be ugly as sin, but at this point is has to be acknowledged as a style. To paraphrase, admitting that American housing has a problem is the first step towards recovery.
...'admitting that American housing has a problem'? that's due to a dollar-store / builder-grade construction strategy - if that's a 'style' than it's unfortunately too disposable. There's that saying, 'We're too poor to buy cheap things' and this holds true when it comes to home design. Good home design is a value-added strategy.
You hit the nail on the head: "...faster & cheaper...". The housing market is broken. What happened to the cheap products made available during the industrial revolution? Inflation? Maybe what we need is a reset (living wage).
I support you and what you're sharing and teaching 100%. The term 'America is a melting pot' would unfortunately apply to most residential builders and especially to the large "Levit-style" tract builder today. We have lost our creative and designing souls... or more accurately sold our souls to cheap and fast.
I wonder if Europeans steeped in their own architectural traditions look at our attempts to build an English cottage or a French chateau and think the same thing-that we are throwing together elements that were developed and utilized centuries apart because in our limited understanding they read as “French” or “English cottage.”
Great video - thank you! It aggravates me to see, even among the most humble ADU, that there is no coherence of style to the original house - let alone proportion (although sometimes it's a zoning code issue), and never mind about the vocabulary of materials and site analysis. I take McMansions to be the builder-grade ADU-equivalent home of the suburbs. We should call them EDU's - elite dwelling units. This is what someone with a lot of money throws at a the lowest-bid contractor.
Your timeline on the whiteboard really illustrates where we came from and where we are going. Here in the west, desert modern is pretty good, not great but good. It has "some" Wright elements in it especially in the master planned community that I live and it gives a cohesive look and feel. Could it be better? Absolutely, but it could be a whole lot worse. Nearby a lot of new custom homes starting at 5 million and going way up are really giving to the modern "white" box that are so prevalent in the Hollywood Hills or the true mid century modern homes of Palm Springs. Here in Las Vegas, the elements have been changed to create what I call party palaces that are great for entertaining but for living, not so much. Acres of glass that requires frequent cleaning and gross lack of building the the homes for the harsh desert climate. As if anyone is going to open these massive walls of glass only to let in the dust, bugs, snakes and who knows what. There are only a few days a year that one can truly open the house up for an indoor/outdoor party. All this after living in a Charleston single built in 1820 or so. Maintenance nightmare, difficult parking and tourists on foot looking into the windows all the time. I'll take the desert. Production homes are just BAD at any price point. Don't get me started on the modern farm house that is making inroads here as well. HGTV is the worst influence for homes.
"Cheap and fast" doesn't by itself explain some of these bad choices though. It wouldn't cost any more to mill period-correct trim at any given size. It would cost less to do basic eaves rather than the hated turnarounds with roofing shingles. The complex rooflines of contemporary McMansions and snout houses just multiply costs. Inconsistent window sizes actually slow the production process, e.g. if a window breaks on the job site it must be special ordered. And don't get me started on "tray ceilings" or extra-large / extra-drafty bathrooms. To some extent a "style" is emerging but it is just a consensus about socially-desirable "features" that does not tie into any theme, story, worldview, or artistic vision. It's an extension of consumerism - the view that more stuff (square footage) is both the goal of life and the story we tell about ourselves.
So true. Today’s houses (and remodels) are just an assemblage of products. Worse still is that the contractors and subs often don’t even know how to install the products properly. This is really a problem when the product is functionally different and not just aesthetically different. A wrongly installed vapor barrier, for instance, can be the difference between a dry home and a moldy disaster.
Well, i’m learning a lot from you. And what this video has taught me is that I have one of those awful new houses.😩 so now what do I do? How do I make my house better? I can’t afford to fix everything, but what is the next step when you find out you have one of these houses “put together with leftover parts”. Now that I know more, I can see that it’s a FrankenHouse. What can homeowners like myself do to draw the eye away from the bad and highlight what is good?
I think I agree with you. What’s missing from this video is the list of reasons why most recently built housing is bad. Without the explanation, the presentation is hollow. We need to talk about visual proportions, and scale to human life, and affordability, and the value of a simple roof, etcetc
Very persuasive, as always, on this point. Although, I think the crazy rooflines and protrusions, etc. fused with pseudo-traditional elements, and mixed sidings (brick in front, stucco on the sides and back, looking like they ran out of brick, etc.) represents something of an era, even if by accident, and even if mostly in bad taste? One thing perhaps more fundamental about this era: the transition in the late 80's/early 90's to higher ceilings and open floor plans with the seemingly endless market demand for bigger and better kitchens/bathrooms/closets seems like a functional interior design aspect that has staying power over 35 years or so now. It may not be a style in the sense you mean, but it seems to link all of the cubic feet of the McMansions, regardless of exteriors and interior finishes.
@@BrentHull Love the channel and your work, btw! I especially appreciate the architecture from the builder/craftsman standpoint. Thanks for all of the replies/engagement, as well.
Besides the McMansion, I personally call most homes built in the last 50 or so years as 'cookie cutter' houses, they are basic with little care about the functional necessities that older homes used to have. They are a copy of the neighbor's house, little character involved, it has resulted in too many people not wanting to stand out which is very ironic given that part of the undertone foundation of our country is the value of individualism. Sometimes each region will give a subtle nod to a style as you've mention, but it just doesn't carry out the essence and it results in many of these houses to lack connection that it is a home. I also think the change in family dynamics has influenced homes in the last decades to be more of a drop off point than a place to be connected to, as well as the constant change in technology contributed try to have basic homes to remain some flexibility, at least my theory.
But what about Post-Modernism? Or De-Constructivism? Or Structural Expressionism? Or that hideous house that Robert Venturi built for his mother? And how come your son thinks the Tudor style is French (Passion for Craft reference)? No dessert for him ! LOL
Haha, I'm really talking in the residential realm. The architects have mostly abandoned residential design to builders. We are not being lead well. My opinion. Architecture has not stopped. However, looking back to where house design came from historically, we are style-less today.
Do you mean to say that the split level and that other god awful front door between the two levels is not a classical style introduced since 1970 and that in the year 2125 architects will not be looking back at the Bradybunch split-level house as great architecture? I hope not, maybe they all will have been bulldozed by then
Split-level/Bi-level entryways are quite possibly the worst of all design choices when it comes to real world function. Perhaps second only to tiny kitchens with low cabinets and zero counter space. At least once the 2000's hit the production build designers in my town finally figured out they needed a closet adjacent to these entrys. Meanwhile the 1980s build we're currently fixing has zero storage and you have to walk either up or down the stairs to get your coat and shoes away 😂 just god-awful "space saving" design.
While the post WWII era homes spawned into what we now know as suburbia is why we have this bastardization of classic styles. I'll exclude the post modern era (Mid Century Modern) and the American Arts and Crafts (prairie style, which created the ranch style) as well as Art Deco. The over use of Mediterranean, Tuscany, Mission snd and Mission Revival (here in Arizona) and of course (Adobe) all fall short because of the "cheap and fast" versions are not honest to the. It's honestly sad that this has become a "McMansion" era of homes the last 50 years and it's only gotten worse. You can look upon a Frank Lloyd Wright home and know it was his. We no longer have homes with that distinction anymore. Similarly, developments by Eichler, Richard Haver and several others from the 50s through the 60s era of Space designed homes all moved this country forward with it's own unique style, but no more. Homes are built for the purpose of resell within a 5 yr period and then that family or corporation moves on. So everything is currently built based on trends but borrow from the past, and poorly. Thanks for this video.
@@kennethbarber438 Of course there are plenty of good architects today. That isn't the point here, what is though, is the bastardization of good styles from the past gone wrong. The plethora of "home builders" versus architecturally correct features is what's taken over the "word" architecture. Furthermore, the building of good modest homes that are uniquely American in style is no longer prevalent.
I agree with the Post Modernist identification; at least as far as the McMansion is concerned. These architects seem to be trained, shallowly, in taking ersatz historical detail and trying to synthesize something new. They fail.
Art always begets derivation of lesser quality. Thus Wright's Usonian gems begot the ranch house. A few International style masterworks by Mies or Corbu begot all those unfortunate flat-roofed elementary schools of the late 50s, early 60s.
Please do French Provincial from the 1920s?!?! You've done a beautiful home in that style previously, but its either misunderstood or omitted completely, SMH.
@@frankjoyce76 What you call "virtue signaling" we call having "self respect" Frank. As an architect I dare say that what we in the discipline call historically accurate also includes some varieties of modernism. Apart from Tucker Carlson being a disgusting person, he also has no idea what he's talking about in terms of what constitutes aesthetically valuable.
I assume you have a sequel , and all that has been said this past ten minutes is the preamble. Yes, Mc Mansions are godly awful. Be post war stuff , other than Bauhaus is garbage. So what’s next ?
It is a review of house styles in America. There will be a playlist of house styles growing on my channel. You can also watch my house style videos on the Building and Brew section
I grew up in a Mid-Century housing tract, but once I moved to an older neighborhood and rented a 1927 bungalow with Doric columns supporting the porch, an arched doorway with a heavy wood door, coved ceilings, archways, lots of built-ins, and colored tile, there was no going back. I cringe when old homes are torn down so people can build these new boxy metal, glass, wood, and faux rustic stone disasters. I'm glad to see you are educating younger builders with this very important information. Past styles are classic for a reason.
Agreed. thanks for sharing.
“I can’t afford me sometimes.” I felt that haha. There are several new builds in my area where homeowners are spending north of a million dollars to get crap houses. It’s unconscionable to me when they could afford something beautiful, but they aren’t even aware it exists because we are so saturated in post 1970’s architecture that people don’t even know what they are missing (unless they watch Brent Hull).
Agreed. Thanks.
‘I can’t afford me’😂 Definitely will be using quoting you in future
Haha. Good.
Got a quote from Hull homes for you. I can't afford you either. I'll just have to wait and watch and hope you'll answer a question I have.
Thanks for asserting that McMansion is indeed a style, particularly in the complicated massings and roofs, even as I think about it that walk-in to the double-height great room in back. It may be ugly as sin, but at this point is has to be acknowledged as a style. To paraphrase, admitting that American housing has a problem is the first step towards recovery.
...'admitting that American housing has a problem'? that's due to a dollar-store / builder-grade construction strategy - if that's a 'style' than it's unfortunately too disposable. There's that saying, 'We're too poor to buy cheap things' and this holds true when it comes to home design. Good home design is a value-added strategy.
Point taken. Thx.
You got it, Brent! This stuff has driven me crazy for years.
Thank you!
You hit the nail on the head: "...faster & cheaper...". The housing market is broken. What happened to the cheap products made available during the industrial revolution? Inflation? Maybe what we need is a reset (living wage).
It’s coming 😮
Thanks for watching.
I support you and what you're sharing and teaching 100%. The term 'America is a melting pot' would unfortunately apply to most residential builders and especially to the large "Levit-style" tract builder today. We have lost our creative and designing souls... or more accurately sold our souls to cheap and fast.
Word. Thanks for watching.
Except it’s not even cheap anymore.
Cant wait for Master Builder University! Exited please give more details.
This week. Thx.
I always thought the "new" houses were neo-eclectic. Maybe that's just a fancy term for hodgepodge.
I'll agree with hodge-podge or assembled houses from mis-matched parts.
I wonder if Europeans steeped in their own architectural traditions look at our attempts to build an English cottage or a French chateau and think the same thing-that we are throwing together elements that were developed and utilized centuries apart because in our limited understanding they read as “French” or “English cottage.”
Amen!!!
Thanks.
Great video - thank you! It aggravates me to see, even among the most humble ADU, that there is no coherence of style to the original house - let alone proportion (although sometimes it's a zoning code issue), and never mind about the vocabulary of materials and site analysis. I take McMansions to be the builder-grade ADU-equivalent home of the suburbs. We should call them EDU's - elite dwelling units. This is what someone with a lot of money throws at a the lowest-bid contractor.
Great point! Thx.
The shed style is pretty unique.
lol.
Your timeline on the whiteboard really illustrates where we came from and where we are going. Here in the west, desert modern is pretty good, not great but good. It has "some" Wright elements in it especially in the master planned community that I live and it gives a cohesive look and feel. Could it be better? Absolutely, but it could be a whole lot worse. Nearby a lot of new custom homes starting at 5 million and going way up are really giving to the modern "white" box that are so prevalent in the Hollywood Hills or the true mid century modern homes of Palm Springs. Here in Las Vegas, the elements have been changed to create what I call party palaces that are great for entertaining but for living, not so much. Acres of glass that requires frequent cleaning and gross lack of building the the homes for the harsh desert climate. As if anyone is going to open these massive walls of glass only to let in the dust, bugs, snakes and who knows what. There are only a few days a year that one can truly open the house up for an indoor/outdoor party. All this after living in a Charleston single built in 1820 or so. Maintenance nightmare, difficult parking and tourists on foot looking into the windows all the time. I'll take the desert. Production homes are just BAD at any price point. Don't get me started on the modern farm house that is making inroads here as well. HGTV is the worst influence for homes.
Thanks for sharing. I agree HGTV is problem.
🏆
Thx
"Cheap and fast" doesn't by itself explain some of these bad choices though. It wouldn't cost any more to mill period-correct trim at any given size. It would cost less to do basic eaves rather than the hated turnarounds with roofing shingles. The complex rooflines of contemporary McMansions and snout houses just multiply costs. Inconsistent window sizes actually slow the production process, e.g. if a window breaks on the job site it must be special ordered. And don't get me started on "tray ceilings" or extra-large / extra-drafty bathrooms.
To some extent a "style" is emerging but it is just a consensus about socially-desirable "features" that does not tie into any theme, story, worldview, or artistic vision. It's an extension of consumerism - the view that more stuff (square footage) is both the goal of life and the story we tell about ourselves.
Well said. Consumerism. I think that is a good summation.
So true. Today’s houses (and remodels) are just an assemblage of products. Worse still is that the contractors and subs often don’t even know how to install the products properly. This is really a problem when the product is functionally different and not just aesthetically different. A wrongly installed vapor barrier, for instance, can be the difference between a dry home and a moldy disaster.
Well said. Thx.
My dream idea for a house is a mini Victorian.
Ok. good dream.
Well, i’m learning a lot from you. And what this video has taught me is that I have one of those awful new houses.😩 so now what do I do? How do I make my house better? I can’t afford to fix everything, but what is the next step when you find out you have one of these houses “put together with leftover parts”. Now that I know more, I can see that it’s a FrankenHouse. What can homeowners like myself do to draw the eye away from the bad and highlight what is good?
Sorry. Frank Lloyd Wright said to grow a vine on it. Typically there fixes. I suspect the proportion of parts is bad.
The homeless pop tent or camper is all the rage now.
LOL, good point.
You have "Ranch" but why not a mid-century modern--Eichler etc.
Ranch/mcm are part of the same story in my opinion.
I think I agree with you. What’s missing from this video is the list of reasons why most recently built housing is bad. Without the explanation, the presentation is hollow. We need to talk about visual proportions, and scale to human life, and affordability, and the value of a simple roof, etcetc
Well, that's all i talk about in my other videos so i thought it was redundant. THx.
@@BrentHull that’s a fair point. You can’t cover everything comprehensively in every video.
Very persuasive, as always, on this point. Although, I think the crazy rooflines and protrusions, etc. fused with pseudo-traditional elements, and mixed sidings (brick in front, stucco on the sides and back, looking like they ran out of brick, etc.) represents something of an era, even if by accident, and even if mostly in bad taste? One thing perhaps more fundamental about this era: the transition in the late 80's/early 90's to higher ceilings and open floor plans with the seemingly endless market demand for bigger and better kitchens/bathrooms/closets seems like a functional interior design aspect that has staying power over 35 years or so now. It may not be a style in the sense you mean, but it seems to link all of the cubic feet of the McMansions, regardless of exteriors and interior finishes.
Point taken. There may be something there. Thx.
@@BrentHull Love the channel and your work, btw! I especially appreciate the architecture from the builder/craftsman standpoint. Thanks for all of the replies/engagement, as well.
In southern California, it's the worst. I call them stucco boxes on a slab.
Thanks.
Besides the McMansion, I personally call most homes built in the last 50 or so years as 'cookie cutter' houses, they are basic with little care about the functional necessities that older homes used to have. They are a copy of the neighbor's house, little character involved, it has resulted in too many people not wanting to stand out which is very ironic given that part of the undertone foundation of our country is the value of individualism. Sometimes each region will give a subtle nod to a style as you've mention, but it just doesn't carry out the essence and it results in many of these houses to lack connection that it is a home.
I also think the change in family dynamics has influenced homes in the last decades to be more of a drop off point than a place to be connected to, as well as the constant change in technology contributed try to have basic homes to remain some flexibility, at least my theory.
Good theory. THx.
Split Level of the ‘60s, and the ‘80s raised ranch? Now it’s McMansions.
I would argue those are derogatory terms for houses, not a style. But I realize your point.
But what about Post-Modernism? Or De-Constructivism? Or Structural Expressionism? Or that hideous house that Robert Venturi built for his mother? And how come your son thinks the Tudor style is French (Passion for Craft reference)? No dessert for him ! LOL
Haha, I'm really talking in the residential realm. The architects have mostly abandoned residential design to builders. We are not being lead well. My opinion. Architecture has not stopped. However, looking back to where house design came from historically, we are style-less today.
where is that development at 7:00?
My producer shot that around Fort Worth.
@@BrentHull McMansion Levittown
I can’t afford me either!
Good. Thx.
What about farmhouse style?
That is a rehash of an historical style. Thx.
First off, I'm stealing "I can't afford me". Second, would you class the "earth ship" as a modern style or is it still too old for your purposes?
Hmm, good question. Probably not. Thx
I used gobbly goup in a sentence today. SF/
Nice. Thx.
Do you mean to say that the split level and that other god awful front door between the two levels is not a classical style introduced since 1970 and that in the year 2125 architects will not be looking back at the Bradybunch split-level house as great architecture? I hope not, maybe they all will have been bulldozed by then
LOL, yes, sadly, that is what I mean.
Split-level/Bi-level entryways are quite possibly the worst of all design choices when it comes to real world function. Perhaps second only to tiny kitchens with low cabinets and zero counter space.
At least once the 2000's hit the production build designers in my town finally figured out they needed a closet adjacent to these entrys. Meanwhile the 1980s build we're currently fixing has zero storage and you have to walk either up or down the stairs to get your coat and shoes away 😂 just god-awful "space saving" design.
While the post WWII era homes spawned into what we now know as suburbia is why we have this bastardization of classic styles. I'll exclude the post modern era (Mid Century Modern) and the American Arts and Crafts (prairie style, which created the ranch style) as well as Art Deco. The over use of Mediterranean, Tuscany, Mission snd and Mission Revival (here in Arizona) and of course (Adobe) all fall short because of the "cheap and fast" versions are not honest to the. It's honestly sad that this has become a "McMansion" era of homes the last 50 years and it's only gotten worse.
You can look upon a Frank Lloyd Wright home and know it was his. We no longer have homes with that distinction anymore. Similarly, developments by Eichler, Richard Haver and several others from the 50s through the 60s era of Space designed homes all moved this country forward with it's own unique style, but no more. Homes are built for the purpose of resell within a 5 yr period and then that family or corporation moves on. So everything is currently built based on trends but borrow from the past, and poorly.
Thanks for this video.
Agreed. Thanks for commenting.
there are plenty of good architects today designing good homes for wealthy clients, just as Wright did in his day. Custom designed / built = $$$.
@@kennethbarber438 Of course there are plenty of good architects today. That isn't the point here, what is though, is the bastardization of good styles from the past gone wrong. The plethora of "home builders" versus architecturally correct features is what's taken over the "word" architecture. Furthermore, the building of good modest homes that are uniquely American in style is no longer prevalent.
I agree with the Post Modernist identification; at least as far as the McMansion is concerned. These architects seem to be trained, shallowly, in taking ersatz historical detail and trying to synthesize something new. They fail.
I agree, but technically, most houses do not have an Architect involved. Not that it would make a big difference.
Now “small house”, is that a style?
Maybe, right now it is an exploitative movement. Not a style yet. My 2 cents.
There's a new home style in Norway. We call them "Darth Vader Houses". As you probably can guess, they're ugly as sinn
Haha.
Art always begets derivation of lesser quality. Thus Wright's Usonian gems begot the ranch house. A few International style masterworks by Mies or Corbu begot all those unfortunate flat-roofed elementary schools of the late 50s, early 60s.
Noted. Thx.
Boy, my eyes are hurting from seeing all those ugly new homes!
haha. mine too.
Please do French Provincial from the 1920s?!?! You've done a beautiful home in that style previously, but its either misunderstood or omitted completely, SMH.
Noted. thanks.
You really should go on Tucker Carlson. He is always talking about historic home beauty vs modernism today
yeah...going on a white nationalists' pod cast is a really superb idea 😒
@@chichiblanchett6367 calm down honey. Take your virtue signaling elsewhere
@@chichiblanchett6367 Exactly. Who the hell would WANT to willingly expose themselves to such an obviously revolting person? Gross.
@@frankjoyce76 What you call "virtue signaling" we call having "self respect" Frank. As an architect I dare say that what we in the discipline call historically accurate also includes some varieties of modernism. Apart from Tucker Carlson being a disgusting person, he also has no idea what he's talking about in terms of what constitutes aesthetically valuable.
@@frankjoyce76 lol "oh noes, How dare you point out of the obvious! U mUsT bE vIrTuE sIgNaLiNg...Alex Jones told me so!"
I assume you have a sequel , and all that has been said this past ten minutes is the preamble.
Yes, Mc Mansions are godly awful. Be post war stuff , other than Bauhaus is garbage.
So what’s next ?
I think coherence is a good jumping off point, but that sort of rationality easily gets undermined by the bottom dollar.
It is a review of house styles in America. There will be a playlist of house styles growing on my channel. You can also watch my house style videos on the Building and Brew section