Moby Los Angeles Architecture Blog

i’ve decided to invent a new term.
or, if it’s already been invented, co-op a new term.
here’s the new term: mid century gothic.
like this house.
it’s an interesting mid century house that has, apparently, and increasingly, become kind of scary and menacing as the years have passed.
which is not to malign the house or the inhabitants, but it’s a scary looking place.
small windows, all with curtains drawn.
fading painted stucco.
the bones of the house look really interesting, like a stealth fighter wedged into the hillside.
the roof is an interesting and perfect W, and the lines are all restrained and modern.
but it’s succumbed to scary entropy (possibly another term i’ve just invented).
when i was growing up there was a victorian house near me that existed solely to scare the kids in the neighborhood.
it was set back from the road, in a state of entropic disrepair, the windows were covered up from the inside, and we (neighborhood bike riding kids and i) rode by it and assumed that it was where witches lived.
or old dusty victorian people making soup out of squirrels and the bones of lost children.
i’m not implying anything similar happens in this mid century gothic W.
i’m sure that lots of happy, nice, sunny, healthy things happen behind it’s old drawn blinds and curtains.
but from the street it looks scary.
or possibly it’s a front, and there’s a really cool tunnel behind the house leading to a private water park.
it’s possible.