Resumen de A grotesque measure for Marietta

Albert C. Smith, Kendra Schank Smith

• The story of the "Big Chicken" is about a franchise sign that became a representative symbol for Marietta, Georgia. This typical American suburban community, immersed in a contextual field of the sameness of endless franchise businesses, found it required a unique "centre" for defining itself. In a comparison to the grotesque, this sign questions the norms of transition, scale and context. It has become a visual locator in a community epitomized by the marginal. This story of the Big Chicken thus provides a discussion of the problems of perceiving suburban communities and how their inhabitants relate to the built environment.