It's not about "showing off." It's about whether the structures are inviting or alienating. It's about whether they contribute to the aesthetic of the neighborh

It's not about "showing off." It's about whether the structures are inviting or alienating. It's about whether they contribute to the aesthetic of the neighborhood. It's about whether their exteriors sacrifice form for a cheap veneer of ostentation. The elements of McMansions are borrowed, ineptly, from better classes of buildings and then mangled and jumbled together. They make a vague visual promise of quality, and their intent is to be sold. Buildings should, instead, function inside and out to support the life and activities of their residents and those residents neighbors and visitors. The visual function of architecture is not decoration; Architecture uses a visual language that conveys the uses of structures to the community at large, as well as the residents (in a home) or patrons (in a business or public space), so that society can function. And, to say that these homes are not bought to be looked at nor shown off is incredibly naive. The point of them is aesthetics, and that's part and parcel of why they're such travesties. It's why they are degenerate. They're the kind of thing that can only pass to someone who is uprooted from their own culture and history, cannot even rely on even a folk understanding as a guide to what works or does not work architecturally. These are degenerate homes, sold to the degenerate mass of déclassé and rootless consumers.