There seems to be no limit to the amount of ugliness that has been inflicted upon the American landscape by “developers”. We live in a time of junkitecture, where buildings are constructed of materials without proportion, balance or dignity.

In the Washington, DC area “Georgian” and “Colonial” town houses multiply like cancerous skin cells upon the entire metro region. In an assemblage of elements that would make Thomas Jefferson vomit, the classical vocabulary of symetry, order and proportions has been completely removed. What is left is junkitecture in the plastical style. Who would want to live in a building, like the one below, which throws hideous garage doors into the face of the arriving occupant and the passing pedestrian?

Las Vegas, the fastest growing city in the US, is repeating all the mistakes of Los Angeles fifty years ago. Single family houses, entirely dependant on cars, without regard for public transport water conservation or walking, has defiled the desert and made Clark County one of the most polluted and ugly places in America. Where are the trees, front porches, or any element of communal life in these single family, mass produced junk towns? James Howard Kunstler has a fantastic article on his website: http://www.kunstler.com

The Skokie, IL multi family was built in the 1950’s. It is certainly ugly, but not aggressively so. In its yellow brick, scalloped window shade, bourgeois propriety it retains a certain dignified look. Someone’s grandmother lives here, perhaps, looking out of her living room picture window to make sure that her grandchildren are safe. Chicago has thousands of these neat and sturdy structures, which still adhere to a regular rhythm and respect for civic and community context.

If we must adhere, as Bush says, “on the side of life” what does it say about our respect for life to live in these monsterous homes?