In late-20th-century anti-modern circles, adding a mansard roof to a building was thought to add substance and class. So why not achieve the same effect by putting one atop the sign, which was likely even more prosaic than the institution being promoted? I can’t speak for the whole country, but in the Chicago area our streets were once lined with this supremely weird expression of 1970s-era mansardism — signs with roofs.
Back in 2003 I published a tribute to this fashion — déclassé suburban even in its prime — which you can read here. Or check out the gallery below that includes more recent scans and photos of both signs and buildings. Mansards are becoming scarcer — the fate of nearly every architectural fashion. But that means they are even more due for revisionist appreciation.
Read my 2003 meditation on mansards:
I grew up inside a mansard. I am starting to understand.