Architectural Concensus: What is Acceptable Design?

Recently,  someone asked what the general consensus in architecture is about style.

Here are my thoughts:

First, there is no general consensus nor should there be one: who has the right to say what can and can not be designed? The design police? 

 Architecture is first and foremost about sculpting our experience of space, on the verge between light and silence. Style is an added layer of refinement. Could a modern day architect successfully build a breathtaking and genuine architecture and use the classical style? Absolutely! Could a modern day architect do the same in a post modernist style? Absolutely. The choice exists and that diversity in architectural expression ought to be celebrated. 

The problem is when these things become imitations and not emulations, decorated sheds instead genuine architectural experiences.

Case in point: Comparing a real courtyard with a building branded as "courtyard."

 And this is a problem that afflicts the whole spectrum of design. I've seen designs trying to be brutalist but they end up with "brutalist light," trying to be Wright but end up "Wrightish," trying to be international modern but ending up "moderny." 

To answer your question, the McMansion problem is really a problem of a meme/cartoon of a building type, instead of a genuine design, trying to pass as architecture. It has nothing to do with the style in which the building gets built. That is a separate issue entirely.