Instead of enjoying the sunrise from a spot along the beach in Kahala, this was Day #2 of walking around the neighborhood. It does give you a different perspective on the world.
Let’s see. Imagine that you’re designing a house to fit into our lush, semi-tropical surroundings and allow easy, inside-outside living. What’s the first design principle that comes to mind?
Apparently for many architects, Hawaii is just the place for…columns. Yes, that’s right. Columns to frame your front door or entryway.
Here are a few examples of houses with columns that we walked past this morning. Click below to see the photos.
It isn’t just that there’s nothing that says or even hints at “Hawaii” in the design of any of these houses.
And those columns. It’s as if the architects were unaware of where these homes were located, or perhaps just didn’t care.
But I’ll leave the design criticism to Kate Wagner, an architecture and cultural critic based in Washington, DC, the author of “McMansion Hell“, a blog that roasts a number of design elements of these pretentious homes.
Here’s how she begins her chapter, “McMansions 101: Columns.”
You know what the point of columns are? To support shit.
However, 99% of the time, McMansion builders didn’t care about that. To them, columns were there to show how rich you were. They put columns (also called pillars) on goddamn everything, even if it didn’t match the style of the house, or made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
In any case, enjoy Wagner’s chapter on columns. It’s educational as well as entertaining.
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Good one!!
Like the author’s no-nonsense, descriptive observations. Think will explore her further.
If nothing else, hope this “pandemic” will force humans rethink what’s fluff.
Well, I have 2 square pillars holding up the roof of my porch. Not pretentious at all. How else can you hold up the roof?
Those houses you photographed are beautiful. Like, wow!!!
There are many excellent candidates for McMansion Hell in Kahala.
I grew up in a traditional two-story classic colonial-style home. The house had one-story-high pillars holding up the little sloped roof over the center-doorway entrance. Ian’s post inspired me to take a look at that home on one of the real estate sites. I can say proudly that the pillars look just right for the house. They are not showy, and they are painted the same white as the house, so they blend right in. Pillars can be done correctly.
The McMansion and the Monster Homes both make Hawaii so hot and ugly its depressing. The horrible square monster home boxes built as high and close to the lot lines as possible. The McMansion builders are just as bad with the mango, lychee and plumeria ripped out for mirror windows and oversize greek palaces. Ugh!!
People who went to graduate school find these houses to be ugly, everyone else thinks that they are beautiful. Gotta feel sorry for the architects, who went to graduate school and know better. But everybody has got to eat, know what I mean?
It would be wonderful to see island homes being built in Hawaii instead of the Mini Parthenons with giant columns and frosted crystal. Those just don’t match with our weather, history and island style of living.
Personally, I would think twice before posting pictures of my neighbor’s homes to criticize their architecture.