The creator of McMansion Hell on a new strain of modern houses for the masses From busy rooflines to plastic shutters, mismatched windows to four-car garages, the McMansion has dominated the American suburban residential landscape for almost 40 years without a notable change in aesthetics. Many people know a McMansion when they see one. The typical McMansion follows a formula: It?s large, cheaply constructed, and architecturally sloppy.

Until around 2007, McMansions mostly borrowed the forms of traditional architecture, producing vinyl Georgian estates and foam Mediterranean villas.
But in the last 10 years, this has begun to change: McMansions are now being constructed in architectural styles from the 20th century, specifically modernism. We are witnessing the birth and the proliferation of modernist McMansions: McModerns. Though McModerns are commonly found in the places where modernism itself thrives?indoor-outdoor climates like the West Coast and the Southwest, and near liberal cities on the East Coast?they are also beginning to pop up in burgeoning tech hotbeds south of the Mason-Dixon, such as central North Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia. McModern houses are following the trail left behind by NPR, Chipotle, and MacBook Pros: They?ve become popular with younger, tech-savvier, and more highly educated individuals.
What makes the McModern a fascinating case study in residential architectural history is its two separate lineages: its foundation as a McMansion, a...