An Italian coworker told me the one American town she’d liked was Boston, “they actually have architectural styles, there!” To us, a lot of American architecture looks throwaway; to Americans, a lot of our stuff looks run-down.
Eh, “run-down” is the wrong word, unless it is, of course. “Quaint”, if we’re being uncharitable, or possibly “vernacular” if we’re more up on architectural jargon. Of course, the best-known European architecture, the cathedrals and palaces and castles, fall into architectural periods and fashions, like International Gothic or Baroque, just like how a lot of older American homes and churches are Carpenter Gothic or Queen Anne or Federalist, and older public buildings run to the Neoclassical.
Seeing the more recent styles as styles is hard, but you can pick out American Craftsman if you know what you’re looking for, and it’s fairly common even (or especially) in newer cities out West which weren’t urbanized until the latter 1800s. Then there’s the inescapable Ranch style, much beloved of post-WWII tract housing, which is, of course, too new to be fashionable again and, therefore, something everyone must needs revile quite mindlessly, and the somewhat older American Foursquare, which is possibly old enough to be appreciated at this point, despite its association with Sears.
Whenever I watched Time Team and they’d casually talk about things that happened in that spot 500 years earlier, I’d think back to my home town that wasn’t even 100 years old when I was born. In fact New Zealand had its 150th celebrations in 1990, colonially speaking. In terms of archaeology, it’s all naturalism, no ancient architecture at all. Boggles my mind what the UK and Europe has under its soil.