This Thursday artist Mary Ellen Carroll lifted and turned an unoccupied house in the Houston subdivision of Sharpstown 180 degrees.  The artist explained that the work, “Protoype 180,” was a commentary on the lack of a land use policy in the city, and on the fading glamor of this community.

Like many suburban communities Sharpstown was laid out in a way that’s purely picturesque, without regard for the land’s native landscape and orientation, so that turning the building 180 degrees doesn’t do much but replace the front street facade with another, less formal one.  At a time when so many single family houses are being foreclosed on the effort seems especially hollow.  Taking the building to somewhere where it was needed would have been a more radical gesture.