Big Box Protest!

After yesterdays post about my adding a model of a Home Depot to my layout, I was surprised at the responses. Several were entirely against the idea of placing such a banal structure on my layout as well as why I would pay homage to big box atrocities. Some were perplexed as to why I would waste space on my layout to something many consider an eyesore. All were valid points.

Firstly I agree, big box stores are as boring as architecture gets. It's a sorry state of affairs out there. These buildings, literally made of styrofoam, offer nothing to stir the soul. They certainly lack the organic lines of Calatrava or the pragmatic order of Le Corbusier. Someone once said architecture is frozen music. If that's true, a big box store is the worst song ever; sung off key by some American Idol reject. At best they are just a roof and walls to keep stuff dry. So, please don't misunderstand my placement of one of these on my layout. It's no celebration.

When you consider what many of us usually model on our layouts; it's not much different. The best layouts that express and display a rich character and depiction of the world around us, usually do so through modeling run down, weather beaten buildings and vehicles. Often the goal is to model what most people consider eyesores.

A rusty locomotive, covered in soot. A weathered clapboard building falling apart, surrounded by junk ( really garbage). A crowded waterfront scene, with low tide exposing decaying trash...to me , the big box store is just another one of those eyesores, depicted in the modern era. Aside from us model railroaders, most people would object to the kind of "scenery" we create for our model trains. Modeling the Home Depot on a modern layout is just another extension of the big mess in the world; which is why it interests me. It's not unlike graffiti on a box car or a gondola filled with rusting scrap metal.

My goal when starting this layout was to create something as realistic as I could. While I plan on adding older structures, that have remained into the present era, I think a few very new ones do the job of suggesting time and place. I was very much inspired by the layouts of Pelle Soeberg and Lance Mindhiem; both of whom model present day. Within their layouts are modern structures like a common Shell gas station, or a simple produce warehouse that was nothing more than four walls , a roll up garage door and some signage. But it was this lack of detail that actually gave it character. It was a sparseness that appealed to me like a scene in an Edward Hopper painting.

Whether it works or not remains to be seen. At the moment I'm enjoying the process, which is always my first goal when modeling. I think once more of it is completed, parts will begin to blend in to an overall picture of railroading in 2010.

And since my modeling interests change like the wind, fear not. I keep a wrecking ball under my bench work. That Home Depot could be razed at any moment and I could backdate my layout back to the 1950's. But for now it'll remain, I have to get back to work on my HO model of a Chuck 'E Cheese...anyone have a small mouse toy I could use for the roof sign?