Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Or is it the home, or the school?

After reading yesterday’s paper, I began to wonder whether architectural structures are fecund; that is, capable of producing offspring.

One section led with a feature on a starkly modern home, the overall features of which are eerily reminiscent of the Stowe Elementary School now in the latter stages of construction.  Witness this photo of the home:

The harsh angularity of the design, and it’s utter disregard for “a traditional New England look,” called out to us in no uncertain terms as having a common ancestry with the Colossus of Spring and McKeen.

Look at this:

The common link to McDonald’s classic store design is obvious, even to the point where the home uses Golden Arches exterior colors.

Could it be that the primary architect of our ‘traditional’ look school is also the designer/builder/owner of the house featured in the Sunday paper?  And wants to sell it because he can no longer bear its lack of human scale and warmth?

Or he’s tired of having passers-by drive up to his house to order four Happy Meals?

I suppose we’ll never know.

For now, we’d like to ask our more culturally astute and creative readers to explain to us the significance and merit of the specially designed windows in the school pictured here:

We don’t quibble with the need to teach our children about trapezoids, but must we do it with what are surely non-standard, ultra-expensive windows?

Can we get real here, people?  It’s one thing to thumb your nose at the community look and traditional design; it’s quite another to allow architects to make personal statements, statements that make no obvious sense, with taxpayer dollars.

Is there any doubt that the E/F wing of the future is taking shape before our very eyes?  How long will it be before the cries for its demolition begin?

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