Your photo of the single-barreled shotgun house Elvis grew up in, reminds me of the single-wide trailer-looking Clinton Presidential Library in Arkansas:

http://tonova.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/clinton_library.jpg

http://www.zigersnead.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/clinton-library-image-02.jpg

To me, most modern architecture has the warmth, sensitivity, charm and humanity of a crematoria at Auschwitz. Somebody went to college for 5 years so they could design something like this? Pity. Don't build this kind of garbage in my neighborhood! I'd rather we saved the old buildings!

The sense we get from being out of time and historical place is and has been strongly reinforced by the trends and fads in the architectural profession over the last 70 years.

The "intellectual lights" of Modernism were anarchists and deconstructionists. It started in Germany with the "Bauhaus" in the 1920's. Theirs was an "anti-bourgeois" rebellion. Get rid of all historical styles! Get rid of all ornament! Put a sledgehammer to it all. Reduce everything to plain surfaces.
(One of their gurus, Adolph Loos, declared all ornament a crime!)

The profession "sold" this ethos in the 30's and 40's, and the "buyers" of this swill became the developers of buildings. 60 years later, we can see the "fruits" of this in every city and suburb throughout the world.

Some have backed away from doctrinaire Modernism, sensing that it looks too austere and not too wildly popular with the public. Most still can't face the fact that their profession has been creating ugly, soulless buildings with no charm and character. You would think that it would cause some of them to go back to historical styles- and some have (although few of them do it well, after all their profession is three generations out of practice with traditional design.) Instead, most opt for "post modernism", non traditional design with peculiar features that are not "functional", and yet seem awkward as ornament and as style.

Once you destroy traditional design buildings and replace them with post modernist claptrap, I for one feel a tremendous alienation and disconnect from any sense of history, time or place. Will anyone care, will there be devoted preservationists putting themselves in front of the wrecking ball when some of this modernist stuff itself comes before the wrecking ball? I certainly don't think so! Who is going to boo-hoo and miss this stuff when it's gone? That is the most damning and embarrasing question I put before contemporary architects.

In all fairness, some architects do retro styles very well. Kudos to Lucien LaGrange in Chicago!

When we look at old films, which often feature stock location shots of various cities, we get to see what we have lost over time.

Elvis Presley Birthplace & Museum
Tupelo, Mississippi

Jake in the Heartland

On Google images you can do a search for:

oval house

and:

round house

Also, do a search for:

Navajo Hogan

These types of round houses have been in my area for the past thousand years or so. I find broken pieces of pottery in my yard that are 900 to 1100 years old.

Sticks and small logs hold the mud in place:

Yes, some buildings need to be demolished.

I will head out to the tomorrow to capture some local flavor. Now all this nostalgia has me fantasizing about Key West...

The army did an experiment with using them for immediate housing in remote areas. One truck could hold the people and equipment needed and each additional truck could hold the pilings and construction necessities for eight houses. After the crew put in the pilings and assembled the rings a helicopter would bring in the house and set it in place. The shape was thought crucial since the wind would not sway and twist it as it would a structure with flat sides.

I know they did a test wherein they erected six of them in three days on the side of a mountain. They must have found problems as I did not hear of them ever being used again.

I remember it clearly for I was disappointed that there were no UFO sightings reported during the construction.