In a portentous video essay for Vox, producer Coleman Lowndes explains why the highly decorated, overly trimmed Victorian mansions (McMansions of their time) of the Gilded Age went from being a symbol of wealth and comfort to a frightening symbol of impending danger and doom.
Kate Wagner, aka McMansion Hell talks about this in this wonderful episode of the Hyperallergic podcast. Listen to it to get a more in-depth understanding of architecture as social dominance.