#architecture analysis

Lovell Beach House by Rudolph Schindler

Oh shit anon, okay who wants to write this?? (*raises hand*)

First, a word on the Winchester house/the Gothic potential of the Hargreeves mansion:

Allegory aside, both buildings are of an eclectic architectural style. What I mean by that is, they use traditional forms and reinvent them – reviving a classic or traditional style and merging all these familiar shapes and structures to excess. (The Winchester house is specifically a Queen Anne Revivalist building.)

The goal in recreating these old forms was not nostalgia, but recreation: in American in particular, eclecticism in architecture brought a sense of history and heritage to a culture that was only in its infancy in the 1800s, but also harnessed that feeling of newness and rebirth.

(Those juxtaposing themes of old and new are very apt for Hargreeves’s mansion. He is both a creator, and a time traveller. He lives like he’s perpetually stuck at the turn of the century, and yet his vision stretches far into the future.)

The architectural redundancy, repetition and maze-like quality to both the Winchester house and the Academy take eclecticism to an artistic extreme.

This hyperbole opens a space for Uncanniness – or ‘unhomeliness’. Shapes and structures that should be familiar to us and bring us comfort are skewed in their exaggerated appearance. They feel warped, like an unsettling parody: a smile with too many teeth.

So I propose a Haunted House AU/Hill House vibe that really ramps up themes of the Unknown and the Uncanny. Like, everything’s fine but then stuff keeps happening:

Luther is confused. He knocks his aeroplane model down again, only to find it hanging perfectly when he returns, like it was never touched at all. It twists on its string in the wake of his probing fingers, spinning aimlessly, wings rigid in permanent flight.  

Allison is uneasy. She puts the receiver down after the phone rings off once more, unanswered by Claire or Patrick. The air shifts like one of her rumours, like ripples on a pond - silky and dark and inviting - all spreading from… somewhere. It’s hard to think about. Her mind slips easily away from the answer.

Diego is unsettled. Grace isn’t alright, and he doesn’t know how to fix it. She moves like she’s in a world of her own, looking right through him as if she doesn’t see him at all. She’ll go through the motions of keeping house – folding laundry, cleaning, dusting – but the tasks are empty of purpose. The surfaces never shine like they should, dust thickening the air. The smiles on her pancakes are too wide, eggs burnt. It’s like she’s lost a key part of her programming, her smile as vacant as an empty house.  

Five is going insane. He knows this house, has walked every dusty attic and every damp cellar just to know it, just so he can teleport anywhere, anytime within its four walls. Suddenly, though, he’ll try to pop up in the kitchen, only to end up in Pogo’s room or Reginald’s study. It’s changing. It’s wrong. The space between them feels wrong. Gaping. Yawning. He visualises his room again. The gentle slope of his ceiling, the warm lamplight spilling across his desk, the – the darkness pressing against the window panes. No. No, don’t think of that. Think of the light. He suppresses the shiver that prickles his spine, steps across a waiting maw. Where is the light?

Vanya does not play her violin anymore. Not here. The sound carries far into the quiet depths of this endless maze. It breaks the silence that settles so easily around their throats, heavy in their ears. She shrinks from it, tiptoes away as quiet as a mouse to find sanctuary elsewhere.    

Ben is afraid. He feels the phantom creature shift inside him, flex itself against the doorway of his soft flesh as it answers the waking hunger in the air. He can see it, the way the shadows creep and cling in the dingy corridors, reaching for his siblings as they search for answers the house cannot give them.

Klaus is cold. A chill seeps into his veins, settles in his marrow and gnaws at his bones like a hungry dog. It saps the energy from him, insatiable. He chases the last vestiges of warmth through the house and watches his siblings push through the shadows that cling to the heavy rafters, the open doors. He feels the shadows push back. It’ll be dark soon. He tries not to fall asleep. He thinks— he thinks when he closes his eyes, they’ll all disappear.

Hey, thanks for dropping by! I sure have. ‘Dollhouse’ cross-sections are fascinating. They’re great for showing the unseen parts of a house and working out initial room placement as an entire unit:

See Pogo’s room and the utility hallway? We wouldn’t know they were there otherwise! I immediately want to know more - why is Pogo placed here in the house? It’s in keeping with his pseudo-status as ‘butler’ or ‘manservant’. How do we reach those rooms? I have a suspicion it’s through the half-hidden doorways at the back of the sitting room or by the stairs.  I also saw it suggested in another post that the utility corridor is the entrance to Vanya’s cell and perhaps Hargreaves’s larger laboratory as seen in the comics. 

Interestingly, this cross-section also gives an overview of how the three buildings have been altered to fit together. There’s no third floor to speak of here, which we know exists - Five’s room is up there. So we need to take this plan with a pinch of salt. However, the height of the middle building (now the foyer) is a good indication of where the partitioning walls once stood. It is taller than the buildings to its left and right. Nonetheless, whilst the other two buildings are the same height, the actual room height of first (US second) floor is nearly the same as that of the middle building. Meanwhile, the left has a lower ceiling to accommodate a crawl space for storage (and it might suggest that Hargreaves didn’t put in as much effort renovating the apartment building for the children as he did the buildings for his own quarters). I’ve no concrete explanation for these details, and there probably isn’t one so far as the narrative goes, but it’s interesting nonetheless to see how the history of three separate building have combined into one eclectic mansion. The differing heights of the rooms is something that cannot be conveyed as meaningfully in a floorplan, yet unfortunately they are also hell to try and create in Sims.  

“So, what’s at stake then is your country, your profession, and you as a decent civilized human being. Anatole France once said, ‘I prefer the error and enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.’ For a society that has permitted itself the luxury of an excess of callousness and indifference, we can now afford to permit ourselves the luxury of an excess of caring and concern. It is easier to cool a zealot than it is to warm a corporation. An ancient Greek scholar was once asked to predict when the Greeks would achieve victory in Athens. He replied, ‘We shall achieve victory in Athens and justice in Athens when those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are.’

FIRST ARCHITECTURE CONCEPTION: