"patrick conroy" wrote in message
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| Taste is - well subject to one's taste.

Agreed. If someone's idea of Shangri-la is Egyptian columns with Victorian
gingerbread trim and Arts & Crafts furniture, then more power to them.
He'll be happy, and someone will stay in business by giving it to him.

But let's go back to my friend Charles. His house -- which I consider
reasonably well appointed -- is decorated in a style that does not
particularly appeal to me. But it is style-consistent and appropriate in
both organization and detail. So for me there's a hierarchy of design
appreciation:

1. "I like that; it's really neat."

2. "I don't like it, but I can see where a lot of other people would."

3. "I don't see how anyone could like that."

The difference between 1 and 2 for me is fairly small.

A lot of people look at Krenov cabinets and say, "Ew, why would I want
something like that in my living room? The legs aren't even straight." But
the smart ones can say, "Hey, that's some great inlay there," or "Look at
what he did with the grain on that drawer; I'll bet I could do that with a
clock face."

You have to avoid the opposite extreme and try not to be a Style Nazi. Some
styles have elements that mix well with other styles. A guy two doors down
from me built a Mies van der Rohe wannabe house and put a Japanese garden in
back. At the outset I wouldn't have lumped Bauhaus and Imperial Japan
necessarily into compatible categories, but the result is brilliant.

Look at the Louvre. Controversial as it seems, the Pei pyramid is generally
seen as harmonious with the rest of the architecture even though it's as
different from it as it can possibly be.

But with some designs you can easily get the idea that some particular
feature or detail was chosen not because it was stylistically appropriate,
but because it was the cheapest thing in the catalogue that month. You
don't build a grandfather clock case and put in a modernistic clock face and
hands just because they're cheaper than the baroque ones. That's not an
adventurous mixing of style; that's just being cheap and half-assed.

If I thought some of the McMansion architecture was based on adventures in
style, I'd have less disdain for it. But when it's so apparently just
providing the semblance of elegance it's not very appealing to me. It's one
thing to create a monstrosity to order. It's another thing to create a
monstrosity out of laziness or cheapness and try to convince people it's
what everyone needs.

Many years ago, one of my first design jobs was at Herman Miller. We spent
a lot of time fuming over the fact that Laz-E-Boy outsold us ten to one.
But just because the market favors something doesn't make it objectively
good.

--Jay