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Comment by dia80 | Hacker News Reader

I am always amazed by Americans love of 'period' style architecture in preference to a more modernist style. Especially when I see friends in my age group (30s) pack there homes with dark wooden furniture that looks like it would be more at home in Versailles. To me it is just visually exhausting and I crave the relative calm of some minimalist sleek lines.

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To a huge number of people, we're tired of minimalism because it's been around for quite a long time and feels quite dated, and isn't as sleek or comfortable as it should be.

This extends to the flat design movement. I hated it 10 years ago when it first started to appear and I don't hate it any less now. I'd take some mild skeuomorphism any day. I just wish it'd go away and fast. It felt positively ancient and overdone 5 years ago--these days it's feeling like a disease that I can't get rid of.

The Material Design idea was a step in that direction. It's based in flat design, but takes advantage of drop shadows to create depth where it makes sense for creating a hierarchy.

Apple has taken some baby steps in that direction too, with ios 11, and the focus on translucency and blur to create layers of depth.

I’m pretty sure the iOS 7/OS X Yosemite redesign was specifically intended to do what you say iOS 11 is taking “baby steps” in. This both predates Material Design and if anything the iterations after 7/Yosemite have toned down the translucency stuff. Source: any media released around the time iOS 7 was announced.

modern building styles are significantly more expensive per square foot in north america than more traditional styles since they use more steel and concrete.

In europe wood for stick frames is expensive enough it doesn't make a big difference, but here in north america stick frames are incredibly cheap.

Combine that with American's belief that size equals luxury and you get mcmansions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_period_styles ?

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