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McMansion
In suburban communities, McMansion is a pejorative term for a large "mass-produced" dwelling marketed to the upper middle class mainly in the United States. Virginia Savage McAlester, who also gave a first description of the common features which define this building style, coined the more neutral term Millennium Mansion. An example of a McWord, "McMansion" associates the generic quality of these luxury houses with that of mass-produced fast food by evoking McDonald's, an American restaurant chain. The neologism "McMansion" seems to have been coined sometime in the early 1980s. It appeared in the ''Los Angeles Times'' in 1990 and the ''New York Times'' in 1998. Other terms used to describe "McMansions" include "Persian palace", "Garage Mahal", "starter castle", and " Hummer house". Marketing parlance often uses the term "tract mansions" or executive homes. Description The term "McMansion" generally denotes a multi-story house that either has no clear architectural style,St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hamburger stand, and later turned the company into a franchise, with the Golden Arches logo being introduced in 1953 at a location in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1955, Ray Kroc, a businessman, joined the company as a franchise agent and proceeded to purchase the chain from the McDonald brothers. McDonald's had its previous headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois, but moved its global headquarters to Chicago in June 2018. McDonald's is the world's largest restaurant chain by revenue, serving over 69 million customers daily in over 100 countries in more than 40,000 outlets as of 2021. McDonald's is best known for its hamburgers, cheeseburgers and french fries, although their menus include other items like chicken, fish, fruit, and salads. Their m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palladian Window
Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and the principles of formal classical architecture from ancient Greek and Roman traditions. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Palladio's interpretation of this classical architecture developed into the style known as Palladianism. Palladianism emerged in England in the early 17th century, led by Inigo Jones, whose Queen's House at Greenwich has been described as the first English Palladian building. Its development faltered at the onset of the English Civil War. After the Stuart Restoration, the architectural landscape was dominated by the more flamboyant English Baroque. Palladianism returned to fashion after a reaction against the Baroque in the early 18th century, fuelled by the publication of a number of architectural books, including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
McWords
A McWord is a word containing the prefix ''Mc-'', derived from the first syllable of the name of the McDonald's restaurant chain. Words of this nature are either official marketing terms of the chain (such as '' McNugget''), or are neologisms designed to evoke pejorative associations with the restaurant chain or fast food in general, often for qualities of cheapness, inauthenticity, or the speed and ease of manufacture. They are also used in non-consumerism contexts as a pejorative for heavily commercialized or globalized things and concepts. Examples Official McDonald's products and branding concepts * Mayor McCheese * McCafé * McDonaldland * McInternet – A free Wi-Fi service in some U.S. McDonald's restaurants. In Venezuela and Brazil, it is an Internet cafe service offered in several McDonald's restaurants. * McState – The McDonald's job and career search service. * McWorld – The term was used in a mid-1990s McDonald's advertising campaign depicting a wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Executive Homes
An executive home is a type of house that is intended to provide its occupant with higher-than-average levels of comfort, quality and convenience. It is a property which a person or family can afford to purchase later on, often using a combination of savings and mortgage financing. In the real estate industry the term commonly denotes large four to six bedroom houses, often older homes but sometimes high-cost new developments. Definition An executive home is a marketing euphemism for a moderately large and well-appointed house. Executive homes are usually constructed among homes of very similar size and type by a subdivider on speculation; they are generally built en-masse by development companies to be marketed as premium real estate. Executive homes can differ from traditional mansions mostly in their parcel size, since many of these newer homes are built on increasingly small lots so developers can maximize available acreage. Executive homes are generally found in outlying su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a palace, which is not fortified; from a fortress, which was not always a residence for royalty or nobility; from a ''pleasance'' which was a walled-in residence for nobility, but not adequately fortified; and from a fortified settlement, which was a public defence – though there are many similarities among these types of construction. Use of the term has varied over time and has also been applied to structures such as hill forts and 19th-20th century homes built to resemble castles. Over the approximately 900 years when genuine castles were built, they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as curtain walls, arrowslits, and portcullises, were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modern Architecture
Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural movement or architectural style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete; the idea that form should follow function ( functionalism); an embrace of minimalism; and a rejection of ornament. It emerged in the first half of the 20th century and became dominant after World War II until the 1980s, when it was gradually replaced as the principal style for institutional and corporate buildings by postmodern architecture. Origins File:Crystal Palace.PNG, The Crystal Palace (1851) was one of the first buildings to have cast plate glass windows supported by a cast-iron frame File:Maison François Coignet 2.jpg, The first house built of reinforced concrete, designed by François Coignet (1853) in Saint-Denis near Paris File:Home Insurance Building.JPG, The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, by William Le Baron Jenney (1884) Fil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At the time, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded that it was the most severe economic and financial meltdown since the Great Depression. One result was a serious disruption of normal international relations. The causes of the Great Recession include a combination of vulnerabilities that developed in the financial system, along with a series of triggering events that began with the bursting of the United States housing bubble in 2005–2012. When housing prices fell and homeowners began to abandon their mortgages, the value of mortgage-backed securities held by investment banks declined in 2007–2008, causing several to collapse or be bailed out in September 2008. This 2007–2008 phase was called the subprime mortgage crisis. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gated Community
A gated community (or walled community) is a form of residential community or housing estate containing strictly controlled entrances for pedestrians, bicycles, and automobiles, and often characterized by a closed perimeter of walls and fences. Historically, cities have built defensive city walls and controlled gates to protect their inhabitants, and such fortifications have also separated quarters of some cities. Today, gated communities usually consist of small residential streets and include various shared amenities. For smaller communities, these amenities may include only a park or other common area. For larger communities, it may be possible for residents to stay within the community for most daily activities. Gated communities are a type of common interest development, but are distinct from intentional communities. Given that gated communities are spatially a type of enclave, Setha M. Low, an anthropologist, has argued that they have a negative effect on the net socia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tract Housing
Tract housing is a type of housing development in which multiple similar houses are built on a tract (area) of land that is subdivided into smaller lots. Tract housing developments are found in suburb developments that were modeled on the " Levittown" concept and sometimes encompass large areas of dozens of square miles. Design Tract housing came about in the 1940s when the demand for cheap housing skyrocketed. Economies of scale meant that large numbers of identical houses could be built faster and more cheaply to fulfill the growing demand. Developers would purchase a dozen or more adjacent lots and conduct the building construction as an assembly-line process. Tract housing development makes use of few architectural designs, and labor costs are reduced because workers need to learn the skills and movements of constructing only those designs rather than repeat the learning curve. In addition, as all houses in the development will be built at the same time, the cost of purch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crown Molding
Crown moulding is a form of cornice created out of decorative moulding installed atop an interior wall. It is also used atop doors, windows, pilasters and cabinets. Historically made of plaster or wood, modern crown moulding installation may be of a single element, or a build-up of multiple components into a more elaborate whole. Application Crown moulding is typically installed at the intersection of walls and ceiling, but may also be used above doors, windows, or cabinets. Crown treatments made out of wood may be a single piece of trim, or a build-up of multiple components to create a more elaborate look. The main element, or the only in a plain installation, is a piece of trim that is sculpted on one side and flat on the other, with standard angles forming 90-degrees milled on both its top and bottom edges. When placed against a wall and ceiling a triangular void is created behind it. Cutting inside and outside corners requires complex cuts at standard angles, typica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultures, including most Western cultures. Some noteworthy examples of porticos are the East Portico of the United States Capitol, the portico adorning the Pantheon in Rome and the portico of University College London. Porticos are sometimes topped with pediments. Palladio was a pioneer of using temple-fronts for secular buildings. In the UK, the temple-front applied to The Vyne, Hampshire, was the first portico applied to an English country house. A pronaos ( or ) is the inner area of the portico of a Greek or Roman temple, situated between the portico's colonnade or walls and the entrance to the '' cella'', or shrine. Roman temples commonly had an open pronaos, usually with only columns and no walls, and the pronaos could be as long ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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