Does fame empower architecture or undermine it? Does the star power or cult status of an architect enhance the art or dilute it? Those are the jumping off points for the forthcoming number of Perspecta. Here is where you come in > "Please complete a short questionnaire to let us know what you think a famous architect should look like. The results will be published in Perspecta 37: Famous." Take the poll.
25 Comments
what does this prove?
deeply stupid.
why is the Yale architecture journal published by the MIT Press?
I thought this might be fun and clicked to the poll and...whah? I hope that the shallowness and insipidity of the questionnaire is intentional and meant to be a little tongue-in-cheek.
he is good.
only a bunch of yalies could come up with something this retarded
wasn't the topic of fame / celebrity over (and boring) long before paris hilton and nicole ritchie began embarassing their families?
besides, don't we already know what the most famous architect looks like? brad pitt, right? duh...
upon realizing that this survey was not of any sort of substance that i thought it would be i felt compelled to just fill it out to fit my phyiscal attributes.
who's idea was this?
I suggest that if you all want to learn more about the purposes and uses of this poll, or to comment further... email the editors. I was furnished with the following address to contact them (seriously): famous@yale.edu
Thank you.
oh, get over yourselves.
of course it tongue and cheek ...
silly archinecters
stop. architecture. it is a team work.stop. no one will ride alone. stop.
My ideal starchitect is a portly 81-100 year old severe-looking bearded south-asian woman with short, curly red hair, blue eyes, and wearing rimless spectacles.
How they happened to have a selection for all my favorite attributes, I'll never know.
white or black or orange
bearded or smooth or stubbly
male or female or TG
tall or short or medium
From Iraq or Seattle or Costa Rica
Canada or Norway or Africa
a TRUST FUND does not discriminate
Famous Architects come from wealth
and they come in all flavors with myriad of toppings
Go ask
Billie Tsien
Maya Lin
Sir Norman Foster
Zaha Hadid
Hani Rashid
Lise Anne Couture
Rem
Max Bond
David Adjaye
IM Pei
Winka Dubbledam
Bob Stern
Machado and Silvetti
Phillip Johnson
Moshe Safdie
Dana Cuff
Hodgets and Fung
Daniel Libeskind
That lineup looks like a UN assembly-
However, what binds them is having the financial resources to afford their freedom-
to teach, to do competitions, to start their firms to weather slow times...
A slightly more analytical event happened at Yale that explored Race and Architecture
I honestly find it quite ridiculous to say "a slightly more analytical event" when the journal issue itself hasn't even come out and no one has had a chance to read anything in it. The internet has become a race about who can get their panties in a bunch the fastest.
Javier,
Those questions on the survey are truly middle school silly.
I just point out that
1) we should demand and expect more investigative and analytical fervor from Yale Architects and Perspecta.
and
2) Startchitecture is not simply about race or gender (silly superficial physical descriptions as the poll suggest) but rather its is about a more complex socio-economic equation.
Should the Profession "feel good" about having a "a portly 81-100 year old severe-looking bearded south-asian woman with short, curly red hair, blue eyes, and wearing rimless spectacles" as someone above describes merely because they have a scattershot of etnic/ description boxes marked off?
True diversity in Architecture will come in making the profession more accessible to people of modest means. Not everyone can afford a $40/year ivy league architecture grad school education.
How wonderful would it be to have a person who lived in and trough the LA riots who became an architect bring their unique perspectives to an urban design plan? How refreshing would it be to have an person who had experienced homelessness offer tangible architectural solutions to affordable urban housing? I doubt the above hypoyhetical architects would offer up $300,000 storage containers + the cost of LA land as "affordable housing." As it stands, in its exclusivity, the Architectural Academy is shutting out too many potential voices.
Perhaps you are right and i am getting my boxers in a sloppy wet bunch, yet, as young architects we should all be rendered infinately more uncomfortable by the elitist nature of this profession.
I see your points about the survey itself but I thought you were dismissing the entire issue before it came out. And I must say to Israel... Nicole Ritchie embarassing her family? Have you seen what Lionel Ritchie used to wear as a Commodore?
Round one clearly goes to Suture, kudos.
and/or suture clearly has 2 much time on his hands ...
and/or we're still taking this questionnaire seriously. i'm still hoping and expecting that the perspecta editorial staff's position will be not much different from suture's and that the questionnaire is merely a foil, a little sleight-of-hand...a way to make a point.
maybe i admire and respect this publication too much and i'm giving too much credit?
if you have your doubts, try this email
im no cinderella man though i may float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Its not about points and rounds- this is merely a good discussion in the name of fun that coincidentally touches on several issues that the architectural profession should take more seriously.
Im placing my bets on the Yale people coming through.
and i double down on skinny Nicole Richie being able to beat skinny Lindsay Lohen.
and do you think Zaha is a muslim? a Christian? or maybe even a dude?
I'm personally just surprised that some news items of what seems to me to be of grave importance generate no comments, and then this gets so many. I never could have predicted it. I wanted to fill out the poll, but then I realized that they don't list "dreads" among the hairstyles.
of course I described myself...
For I am MIES!!!!
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