The last thing we want to do is perpetuate a fast food nation, but there is something fascinating in finding beauty in the grotesque. In this case, it’s unexpectedly interesting architecture housing the antithesis of the greatest Portlandia skit to date. A contradiction in every sense of the word, we’re not celebrating the evil All-American meal and the global health epidemic it’s played a large hand in creating, but only commenting on the power of design should franchised McArchitecture ever be abandoned entirely as a marketing strategy. Case in point: we might actually consider eating at a beautiful McDonald’s.

Call us aesthetic snobs, but subpar standardization permeates this food culture from top to bottom. We can’t help but wonder, what if it didn’t? The fast food of the past 60 years might have looked a lot more like Ferran Adrià’s latest Fast Good in Barcelona.

From a charming adaptive re-use of a Beaux-Arts train station to a lo-fi pop-up to design blog-worthy modernist buildings, click through to check out what fast food architecture could be. Now we just need to get them to revamp the food. … Read More