THE VERY BEST AND VERY WORST: ARCHITECTURE

Add your comments below. We might just include them in the book. It’ll be your lucky day.

• THE VERY WORST STRUCTURES EVER CREATED

Mobile homes. Tin cans for transients. God invented tornadoes just to remind us how crappy these things are. And we still haven’t learned.

Above ground parking garages. How can the world continue to build these concrete monstrosities and not figure out that they need a little design work? Hell, paint the things once in a while.

Low cost housing projects. Just because the people who live there don’t have a lot of cash doesn’t mean these things have to proclaim “shit out of luck.” How about using something other than brown bricks, or try adding a few more windows? Or how about hiring an architect once in a while instead of an accountant? No matter where in the world you go, these things look like they were designed by second graders with a limited grasp of geometry.

Stand-alone fast food restaurants. This is architecture that tells you right up front: “Get in, buy your Happy Meal, and get the hell out.” Bright lights, brighter colors, and a view that actually makes you wish you were back in your car.

McMansions. The home equivalent of stand-alone fast food restaurants. You want it big, ugly, and cheap? Take this mass produced set of blueprints, pick a color not found in nature, and you can squeeze 3500 square feet on one eighth of an acre. Oh, you want design features? That’s what all those silly gables are for.

Portable toilets. Is there anyone on the planet whose stomach doesn’t lurch at the thought of entering one of these aqua-tinted horror shows? Yes, they serve an important purpose, and yes, everyone eventually needs to use one out of sheer desperation. So how come no one has improved the “johnny on the spot,” “port-a-potty,” “happy can,” or “rapid royal flusher?” These travelling outhouses haven’t been updated since Gomer and Goober built theirs out in Mayberry during the 1950s. And you can bet that Gomer never ran out of toilet paper.

The strip mall. A nail salon, a crappy “themed” sports bar, an auto parts store, a Chinese takeout place, and a computer repair store are not enough reason to put these abominations on every corner of every street of every town in the world. Put them all under one roof where they belong. We don’t want to see this excuse for retail shopping every time we go for a drive, so move them inside like they do with real malls.

The gas chamber. Nothing says lovin’ like somethin’ in the oven–except when Nazis or state penitentiaries are involved. The mentality that went in to actually conceiving of a place where humans are gassed to death defies even our active imaginations. An architect and an engineer–or a bunch of them–had to sit down and come up with drawings as to how these death chambers would work. Where do you find the architect for such things? In the Yellow Pages? Is there a listing for guys who flunked out of architecture school because they spent too much time pulling the wings off of flies?

Honorable mention. Residential chicken wire fencing. When you think about it, nothing says “white trash” quite like gun-metal grey fence around a big green lawn.

• THE VERY BEST STRUCTURES EVER CREATED

Elevators. Think about it. No elevators, nothing higher than six stories. No Empire State Building. No office skyscrapers. No highrise apartments. Unless you think you can walk that every day. Good exercise, although we’re betting most people would have a seizure halfway up. The inventor of the elevator, Mr. Otis, probably saved more lives than all the episodes of ERput together.

Outhouses and Public Bathrooms. We laugh now, but people used to crap in the streets. They still use holes in the sidewalks in China, so the world hasn’t progressed very far. The concept of a separate building for waste and sewage was such a no-brainer that when it finally happened, no one had to be told what to do. Everyone just pointed: “Over there.” Lots better than walking around with sloshing bedpans.