We don’t tend to peruse Yahoo! News for our architecture bulletins, but the historical side of our collective brain perked up this recent doozy: Novelty architecture across America.

We’re mainly wondering whether the rich tradition of architectural follies — so picturesque-ly epitomized in the pastoral landscape architecture at Stourhead — has been not just diluted, but completely flipped for American audiences. A folly, by textbook definition, often looks like a real, usable building but is not; instead, it is purposefully built as an ornament, whether in English gardens of the Romantic period or a playhouse for a queen. Novelty buildings, in contrast, have some utility (usually as a fast food restaurant, apparently) despite their fantastic or outlandish shape.

And perhaps these examples of novelty “architecture” as less a typology than a misguided attempt at whimsy or a bad case of Post-Modernism (see: other so-called hot messes). Whatever they are, these buildings are the weird and the ugly of contemporary architecture, and we can’t look away.

The James S. McDonnell Planetarium, St. Louis, Missouri (every year at Christmas the building is adorned with a huge, red bow).

Randy’s Donuts in Inglewood, California

Longaberger Corporate Headquarters, Newark, Ohio

The Big Chicken, Marietta, Georgia

The Big Shoe, Bakersfield, California

Pal’s fast food chain, East Tennessee

What other out-there novelty buildings have you spotted across the US? Do you give them any credit as new follies, or are they just eyesores?

by Kelsey Keith

posted in General

tagged field trip, follies, novelty buildings, post-modernism

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