Growing up in England, ASU assistant professor and architect Jason Griffiths was infatuated with all things American; from shiny Cadillacs to the massive Victorian home of Mork & Mindy. Decades later he took a 20,000 mile trek through our suburban wilderness and discovered that the Brady Bunch image was bogus. “The common perception from the UK is that suburbia is the domain of the white middle class, and it's all picket fences and apple pie,” he says. “This is simply no longer true.” Griffiths incorporated more than 2,500 of the photos he and co-author Alex Gino snapped on their cross-country excursion into the book Manifest Destiny: A Guide to the Essential Indifference of American Suburban Housing, which he will discuss and sign at SMoCA Lounge.
Though Mork’s McMansion isn’t the norm, Griffiths admits he was surprised by the square footage of American homes versus London’s tiny flats. “It's odd to hear an owner of a really large house saying perhaps they could use a bit more space,” he jokes.
Thu., May 3, 2012
