Strangled and Mangled: Classicism and Its Ersatz After Architecture’s Commodification (2022)

It is not difficult, when treading the relatively casual discursive spheres of architectural observation and criticism, to find many instances of designs for élite clientele being mocked for formal ugliness, stylistic ignorance, and architectonic ineptitude. Many of these designs have pretensions of classicism (that is, of the Greco-Roman variety), meaning that such criticism can draw from well-established stylistic rules or suggestions. What is rarer to find is an equivalent scrutiny regarding common architecture.