Normally thought of for their uniformity, Atlas Obscura has a fun list of “7 of the World’s Most Beautiful Fast-Food Restaurants” for those interested in a hybrid of award-winning architecture and fast food.
But beautiful fast-food restaurants exist. Many set up shop in historical buildings after locals refuse to see them bulldozed. Other times, their beauty is on the outside, as with California’s Linda Mar Taco Bell, which offers a life-affirming ocean view. And surely Colonel Sanders never imagined that, one day, there would be a KFC covered in Tang-dynasty Chinese poetry.
For those outraged when massive multinationals seek out glorious surroundings to sling burgers and chicken, don’t fret too much. Only recently, the world’s largest KFC in Azerbaijan left its haunt, a 1926 train station styled as a Moorish palace. It will become a train museum. In Argentina, a Burger King has departed an actual palace, a Venetian-style, neo-Gothic confection in Buenos Aires, and the space is slated to become a bookstore. So, enjoy the high-low beauty of these elegant fast-food restaurants, while supplies last.
Cultural Appropriation with a side of friesReport
I think that I shall never see
A Wendy’s lovely as a treeReport
I yield to no one in my love of old buildings, but the truth is Piazza San Marco in Venice is and always has been a shopping center where people hawked glassware and tourist trinkets to everyone from Crusaders to the nouveau riche of the European empires.
And the fabled public spaces of any ancient city were a chaotic mix of fast food stalls, moneychangers, and grifters playing 3 card monte.
I’ve mentioned here once that as much as I might love the beauty of a Baroque manor house or Renaissance palazzo or ancient temple, the sad truth is that the cities of our romantic imaginings never existed but were instead pretty much like they are now, the magnificent edifices built on a foundation of corruption, slavery and injustice, and surrounded all their life by more of the same.
So really, a fast food joint selling processed beef by products is probably the least offensive thing these fine old buildings have witnessed.Report