This post was brought to you on behalf of Nicole Tuttle for her birthday from Rich and Felix.
“Where do you get your ideas for buildings?”
“Oh, I could never do what you do — you know, get up in the morning and go to my job and do my job there.”
“Sometimes I feel like I have a building in me.”
“What’s your favorite building to re-look at?”
“Oh, I’d love to design an office complex, but I’m just so busy.”
“Is this skyscraper autobiographical?”
“This particular building really surprised me. I mean, I designed it, and I approved it, and I oversaw the construction of it, but it still really surprised me. My buildings are always surprising me.”
“Do you have a designing process, or do you just sort of build it all at once?”
“Architect like a motherfucker.”
“How many floors is a good building supposed to be, roughly?”
“Designing a building is such a wild, messy process. It’s amazing that any buildings get built at all, but somehow the crazy cosmic dance continues.”
“Will you sign my house?”
“But I’d like to talk about the parts of the building I didn’t build.”
“Who would you cast in a film adaptation of your building?”
“Do you do most of your building during the day or when you find an inspiration?”
“Build anything. Build everywhere. You’re going to build a lot of structurally unsound buildings that collapse and kill hundreds before you’re able to build something that can withstand an earthquake.”
“I have a building idea for you; it’s totally fully formed in my mind already, but I just don’t have the time to build it myself. Can I tell you about it for your next building?”
“Draft drunk. Construct sober.”
“If you don’t have time to look at buildings, you don’t have time to design buildings. It’s as simple as that.”
“What made you decide to put such a graphic sex scene on the ninth floor?”
“Do you ever have days where you just can’t plan a courtyard?”
“Does your wife ever look at your buildings before you’re finished?”
“I’m a new architect, and I’m wondering if you have any advice on finding construction contracts.”
Tags: architecture, imaginary conversations, there is no hidden meaning about writing or architecture here i just think it would be funny, writing
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oh this is lovely. I think I need a mug with “architect like a motherfucker” on it. and also? some of these things have actually been said. I have heard them. With my ears.
If you find one, send me the link–I would get it for my dad (the architect) even though explaining it would take too long. He would be amused anyway.
Hell, I might even have one made.
Pretty sure I would cast William H Macy in the film adaptation of my current building: unassuming, jolie-laide, and a kick-ass third floor.
You have to design every day, otherwise you’re not a REAL architect. Hone your craft.
“Here is a thing I built”
sadly as someone who was in a program with a lot of frustrated architects (are architects the new MFAs? who knows? no, who cares?!), this is actually VERY CLOSE TO HOME.
And Frank Lloyd Wright, beautiful spaceship homes nonwithstanding, was a dick and I’m sure thought variants on these things a lot.
“Oh, I could never do what you do — you know, get up in the morning and go to my job and do my job there.”
Sadly, I know people who think like this.
Also, this is hilarious, and I will be substituting my job (epidemiology) in now.
I’ve encountered people who say “oh, I could never do what you do–hold down a regular 8-to-4:30 job! Every day! Doesn’t it make you crazy?”
Do you think we may be doing this because we really love the fluorescent lighting?
40 hours a week in this windowless box makes me feel so ALIVE. #dwyl
#blessed
I was in a building groove and then I hit a wall.
“what’s your inspiration behind such strong buildings, especially as a female architect?”
NO FOR REAL THOUGH. Once, in a client meeting, the client said to the group (referring to our proposed overall design): “I don’t know, it’s a little brutal and boxy, with all that heavy concrete. Could use a little femininity.” [glances at me]. “I designed it, sir.” FIN.
Peter Keating has said all of these at one point or another. Howard Roark doesn’t get the joke. Dominique Francon is masturbating furiously.
It has always been my dream to build the Great American Skyscraper
100% sure Ted Mosby has said these things and answered these questions aloud.
The old girl’s got some stories to tell.
“I could totally design buildings, entire towns even! I just don’t have the patience.”
Similar to things people have said to me, only about an artwork.
“I built a thing.”
“I could totally do that – I played SimCity for a bit but I got bored of it pretty quick.”
I give architecture tours in Downtown LA, and on one tour I had a very… Ted-like gent who kept asking the most ridiculous questions to prove how cool he was. One of them was definitely “Is this skyscraper autobiographical?” The building was thirteen stories tall and based on a 100 year old bank in NYC. It was definitely neither a skyscraper nor autobiographical.
The NYC bank was the site of many of the young architect’s formative experiences — first crush, first kiss, marriage proposal.
Xe and the bank teller are now expecting their first child. They live in a small cottage which is also shaped like a bank.
a small cottage which is also shaped like a bank
“I just don’t think architecture can really be taught.”
“Writing about architecture is like dancing about music; I don’t think it can be done.”
“Are you going to participate in NaSkyConMo this year?”
And then instead of buildings designed for working or living in, all your favorite blocks would be full of buildings trying to illustrate the process of architecture, what it’s like living as an architect, and how to get paid for architecture.
75% of all buildings would be build to look like they were from New York.
“Does anyone really use buildings anymore? I mean, sure, we all agree they’re important, in theory, but when’s the last time you really walked into a building?”
The tags are perfect.
“Don’t use two-dollar concrete when five-cent concrete will do.”
FIVE-CENT CONCRETE WILL NEVER DO
does in montreal
“The Building Is Dead”
“I think it’s great that you make a living building things. Really. It’s great that you get paid. I just don’t think I could let them tell me exactly what they want the building to be like. It’d feel too much like selling out? I have to build what’s important to me, I couldn’t build a sky scraper when was feeling a bungalow.”
Having been in interdisciplinary critiques at art school when painters and poets had to talk about architecture, I have heard all of these. “Where does your interest in staircases stem from? Is that metaphorical in any way?”
I took a Figure Drawing for Architects class once. You can imagine.
I confess, this is what it sounds like to me when people talk about haute couture. I get that it’s a fine art, not a commercial product, but I still feel confused when people talk about the story arc of a line of jackets.
Your first million rooms will be crap.
My buildings are like my children.
I design buildings I’d like to be in.
The problem with the Internet is that now, everybody’s an architect.
I had a small building in Wyoming. It’s getting harder and harder though.
For one of my classes in college we read something about how men create physical things because they’re trying to mimic the female ability to create life, and that’s also why buildings are more or less phallic (it was allegedly from a feminist perspective). Which, setting aside the gender essentialism, and setting aside my reaction that if you think buildings are phallic, you’re seeing very different penises than any I’ve encountered, what else would buildings look like? Pits in the ground?
EXACTLY. Yes, they’re phallic in a sense. But it’s also the most efficient way to use space!!
*heads to the ninth floor*
architect drunk, construction manage sober.
Architect 1: “How many floors is a good building supposed to be, roughly?”
Architect 2: “At minimum 130, no good building is less than that.”
If Two Monks could just generate some kind of meme where we work through all the jobs I would be happy.
Ahahah Two Monks Talk About Architecture
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
Architect 1: “What’s the best shape for a building?”
Architect 2: “Sort of like a giant peacock. But more square.”
Architect 1: “Oh, right, right.”
Architect 1: “Incidentally, what colour are peacocks?”
Architect 2: “That’s a hard one. I think it’s grey, mostly? Probably grey.”
PERFECT. (btw, what building is that? looks like either a former-Soviet bloc rural administration building… or an American college library built in the 60s)
It’s a Canadian university library, and didn’t open until 1973. Though they did start building it in 1968, so you were pretty close.
Also, I kind of lied about it being squarish. It’s mostly triangular.
Architect 1: “What do fancy buildings look like?”
Architect 2: “Like a rocket.”
Architect 1: “Like with fins and stuff?”
Architect 2: “Nah, more streamlined. Just a big, round, bulging…rocket.”
Architect 1: “Won’t that look like a dick?”
Architect 2: “It’ll be fine.”
just have to put the Ypsilanti Water Tower here
Sharpie and a mug. Write on mug. Bake mug in oven at 425 for 30 minutes. Turn off oven, leave mug in oven until cool to the touch.
“I have a building idea for you; it’s totally fully formed in my mind already, but I just don’t have the time to build it myself. Can I tell you about it for your next building?”
I see you’ve met several of the clients from projects I’ve worked on…
I think everyone has at least one good design in them.
Maybe I'm not getting this (and Mallory I generally love everything so I think I might be) but this article made me pissed.
As an architect I hear these things ALL THE FUCKING TIME. I have used the phrase "I'm going to Architect the shit out of this" and meant it. People tell me that they would have been an architect if they weren't an X all the time. Is this piece an assumption that writers are the only profession that has tropes, because it's so wrong if it is so, so painfully wrong.
Zaha Hadid
just have to put the Ypsilanti Water Tower here
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/YpsilantiWaterTower.jpg">
Yeah for realllll my dad is an architect and I've heard like, most of these from him or his architect friends or shitty clients or interns or would-be interns? Just because there aren't eight jillion blogs devoted to being an architect doesn't mean this stuff doesn't happen to just about every profession!
A woman must have cover and a spine of her own if she is to design buildings.
I do a lot of architecting in my underwear.
DITTO. I have heard all of these things. Including the comment about how architecture can't really be taught. SERIOUSLY. I get this was a tongue-and-cheek take of how people can be flippant about other professions, particularly those that don't involve making things stand so people can live in them, but these were all variations on things I have heard from clients, bosses, or assholes at bars. Sigh.
Great post. A lot the same sentiments are applicable to software architecture as well. Except for one: draft drunk; construct sober, which could be revisited. How about design drunk; code with a hangover. 😉