Architecture

What is it about the Second Empire style? These tall houses with their high mansard roofs are the favored setting for spooky movies like Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. But when French architects used the term horror vacui, they weren't thinking about murder or ghosts. According to early critics, the opulent Second Empire style expressed a fear of unadorned surfaces.

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^{Photo: Jordan House in Auburn, Maine designed and built by Charles A. Jordan, ca 1880. � Ken Zirkel/iStockphoto}

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