Cities with the most boring architecture in the US?

[Eascoaswing]

Admittedly, I'm all about Victorian style and pre-WWII houses. I like color, I don't like the sameness of the houses here.

So far in El Paso, a city of 600k+ people; I have found five things of interest regarding architecture:

The Camino Real Hotel( with a 25 foot Tiffany stained glass dome and art deco decor, I haven't been there yet but I will)
Ysleta Mission( oldest church in Texas, I really liked this church and I go to a LOT of churches)
Plaza Theatre (which I have reservations to tour because I can't go see it when it's full of people, too distracting)
The stone walls and fancy fences that surround every house in the city(It's a nice touch to and otherwise drab landscape)
St. Patricks Church was nice and big.

The only historic house I know of is the one that looks like a row of white Lego's srrounded by scrub brush.

Not a lot compared to say, Ludington, MI or Watertown, NY or Sacketts Harbor, NY. All towns of fewer than 100k people and they're bursting with a variety of interesting houses to look at.

[Pincho-toot]

Miami, Hialeah and similar areas. The deep part of Coral Gables, with the canopy of like oak trees being an excemption. But those are all ugly Mediterranean style homes with stucco walls. Most are one storey. Complete with many houses not having yards and just cement, it is so drab. Not a Victorian house in sight, all just ugly faux Mediterranean. Barf..

[James1202]

Originally Posted by Eascoaswing

Admittedly, I'm all about Victorian style and pre-WWII houses. I like color, I don't like the sameness of the houses here.

The only historic house I know of is the one that looks like a row of white Lego's srrounded by scrub brush.

I think Lego is the "go to" design studio aide at most architectural schools now.

[StevenDM]

Originally Posted by BadgerFilms

Miami, Hialeah and similar areas. The deep part of Coral Gables, with the canopy of like oak trees being an excemption. But those are all ugly Mediterranean style homes with stucco walls. Most are one storey. Complete with many houses not having yards and just cement, it is so drab. Not a Victorian house in sight, all just ugly faux Mediterranean. Barf..

Miami is strictly a 20th and 21st Century city. It wasn't founded until 1896, toward the end of the Victorian era. What few Victorian buildings Miami may had would have been bulldozed for newer construction during the city's growth in the first half of the 20th Century. In 1950, Miami was a decent looking city, with original Spanish Revival and Art Deco buildings and Bungalow and Spanish style houses. The post-1950 sprawl was like anywhere else in the Sunbelt with bland cookie-cutter developments, and the pre-1950 buildings were neglected in the late 20th Century with many of them eventually falling to the wrecking ball.

One Miami neighborhood in particular that comes into my mind is Edgewater, just north of downtown. Edgewater was developed in the first three decades of the 20th Century and had probably the finest collection of early 20th Century residential architecture in South Florida. But as South Florida grew elsewhere, Edgewater was left behind and by the '70s had deteriorated into one of Miami's worst neighborhoods. The houses fell into neglect and many were gradually lost to abandonment, fire and other causes. After 2000, Edgewater became a prime neighborhood because of it being north of a rejuvenated downtown and next to Biscayne Bay. The remaining houses became the targets of developers' bulldozers and were replaced by typical South Florida high-rise condominiums and stucco townhouses.

Coral Gables is one of the few historic places in South Florida, which has very few historic places, to be preserved so it retains some charm with the large oaks. But Coral Gables was originally developed in the 1920s, when Spanish and Mediterranean Revival were the rage. However, Coral Gables' historic houses look better than the faux-Mediterranean McMansions in the newer South Florida developments.