September 1998 | Eyesore

Commentary on architectural blunders in monthly serial.

Americans now think that everything is television. This house is broadcasting the "Jonathan Livingston Seagull Show" twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. The problem is, when I walk down the street I don't carry a remote clicker that is capable of changing the station. The poor feeb who owns this house wants to believe that a cartoon of a bird makes up for the blank wall. It doesn't. Cartoons are not an adequate replacement for an architectural grammar of pattern, rhythm, and proportioning.