Please share your favorite humorous descriptive words for architecture.
For example, the current Frontgate catalogue has a "featured home" which the owners describe as a little old Italian and a little French: "We call it "Fratalian" !!!!
Fratalian. This is now our office's new term for bad suburban style. Anyone else?
also, when i lived in new orleans i once heard a couple behind me on the streetcar discussing the houses along st. charles avenue. one comment: 'look at all the architecture on that one!'
if you look at some of sambo and coleman coker's projects, you'll often see a collection of random tensil pieces joined together... we dubbed this 'flying sticks n shit'.. which every student eventually tried as a design method at some point in their studios.
also one of sambo's design advice to young students was to start with what you new from past projects.. maybe a more formal front or public side of a project and then you can do your "star wars" out in the back.. ie 'flying sticks n shit' or whatever the hell you wanted to because no one had to look at it...
"elegant modernism"...used by a very famous architect. I find elegant such an awkward term when associated with a building. I can't think of a single building that could be described as that, I would always describe it using different term. I guess the're trying to appeal to a certain clientele.
May 19, 05 7:23 pm ·
·
I like architecture that's part French and part Greek, it's Freek Architecture.
I actually like "sexy", and use it often - to describe my own work, of course.
I almost slapped a saleswoman the other day when she kept showing me fancy throw pillows in this "color story" or that "color story". Please. "Colorway" is stupid enough, "color story" makes me want to throttle someone.
Yes, vocabulary can make me violent.
May 20, 05 11:05 am ·
·
There was this nun in grade school that used to take our class downtown on architectural walking tours, and she was really fond of saying, "Look at all the powerful erections!" And then she started showing us "dark nooks and crannies." Then she took us up City Hall Tower, and when the elevator got to the top she said, "Now children, ejaculate yourselves." Thank you Sister Immaculata!
"funky"
this one gets used in the office I'm at and it annoys me to no end. "funky" is something my mother would use, not a word used by someone thats studied architecture...
When I was in school there was a tendancy to use some curved element in a plan that had no character in itself to make it more interesting.
It was known as the 'schwing'
Also, the term 'style' bugs me.
Like - what's your favourite 'style' of architecture (I was once asked by a mortgage agent, as if it would impress me that she knew that 'style' and architecture were somehow connected.
Yes, ma'am, I do have a favourite 'style' (flavour?), it's called 'don't bug me'!
Sorry for the cynicism, it's been a rough couple of weeks...
Learned this one from a retail guy from LA the other night. It's somewhere in between "fucked" and "concocted." It's fuckocted. Sort of an intentional messing of otherwise clean forms.
i hate critics (critters) that always make the sound "mmmm..." and gently tap their finger on their lips as if in some deep thought.
I also hate it when they make stupid metaphors. You're building is like an i-pod, was something i heard in a recent review of another student's project.
in the words of my favorite bs'er, PHANTASMAGORIA!
now go make some more crappy watercolors that your genii will turn into something amazing, yet again. i drove 3 hours to watch you talk poop for 90 minutes and then when challenged utterly fail to justify anything, other than to say, "the watercolor, she looks good, no?" and isn't it the swoosh, not the schwing, which is german for oscillating...
i know alot of crits that like to use "big" words to make them selves look smart, but i spent some time looking up their definitions and im starting to believe they have no idea what they mean. here are some for example...
epistemological
ontological
(and my favorite) proper..as in a review proper.. please who really talks like this..haha
i know alot of crits that like to use "big" words to make them selves look smart, but i spent some time looking up their definitions and im starting to believe they have no idea what they mean. here are some for example...
epistemological
ontological
(and my favorite) proper..as in a review proper.. please who really talks like this..haha
Ridiculous descriptive words for architecture
Please share your favorite humorous descriptive words for architecture.
For example, the current Frontgate catalogue has a "featured home" which the owners describe as a little old Italian and a little French: "We call it "Fratalian" !!!!
Fratalian. This is now our office's new term for bad suburban style. Anyone else?
exstatic architecture per the man himself Charles Jencks
"Luxuriously luxurious!" (a la Bobby Trendy)
i've never gotten past 'curb appeal'. cringe...
also, when i lived in new orleans i once heard a couple behind me on the streetcar discussing the houses along st. charles avenue. one comment: 'look at all the architecture on that one!'
we had a client who wanted a "rustic-hi-tech" look to their building
if you look at some of sambo and coleman coker's projects, you'll often see a collection of random tensil pieces joined together... we dubbed this 'flying sticks n shit'.. which every student eventually tried as a design method at some point in their studios.
also one of sambo's design advice to young students was to start with what you new from past projects.. maybe a more formal front or public side of a project and then you can do your "star wars" out in the back.. ie 'flying sticks n shit' or whatever the hell you wanted to because no one had to look at it...
per Corell
"elegant modernism"...used by a very famous architect. I find elegant such an awkward term when associated with a building. I can't think of a single building that could be described as that, I would always describe it using different term. I guess the're trying to appeal to a certain clientele.
I like architecture that's part French and part Greek, it's Freek Architecture.
CORPORATE sounds so stupid, its an excuse for no design
'ultra-modern boxy'
"transistional" or in other words "you know, like Pottery Barn"
"sexy." That's actually not that bad, it just has always struck me as ridiculous.
I actually like "sexy", and use it often - to describe my own work, of course.
I almost slapped a saleswoman the other day when she kept showing me fancy throw pillows in this "color story" or that "color story". Please. "Colorway" is stupid enough, "color story" makes me want to throttle someone.
Yes, vocabulary can make me violent.
There was this nun in grade school that used to take our class downtown on architectural walking tours, and she was really fond of saying, "Look at all the powerful erections!" And then she started showing us "dark nooks and crannies." Then she took us up City Hall Tower, and when the elevator got to the top she said, "Now children, ejaculate yourselves." Thank you Sister Immaculata!
"funky"
this one gets used in the office I'm at and it annoys me to no end. "funky" is something my mother would use, not a word used by someone thats studied architecture...
whimsical - thanks mike
When I was in school there was a tendancy to use some curved element in a plan that had no character in itself to make it more interesting.
It was known as the 'schwing'
"The Schwing" - ha! I will use that one.
Also, the term 'style' bugs me.
Like - what's your favourite 'style' of architecture (I was once asked by a mortgage agent, as if it would impress me that she knew that 'style' and architecture were somehow connected.
Yes, ma'am, I do have a favourite 'style' (flavour?), it's called 'don't bug me'!
Sorry for the cynicism, it's been a rough couple of weeks...
Yeah - it usually looked like the Nike 'schwing'
I like "sexy"
I dislike "organic"
scrumtralescent
I like "organic."
I also like "ass slappity happy."
"fuckocted"
Learned this one from a retail guy from LA the other night. It's somewhere in between "fucked" and "concocted." It's fuckocted. Sort of an intentional messing of otherwise clean forms.
.mm
i hate critics (critters) that always make the sound "mmmm..." and gently tap their finger on their lips as if in some deep thought.
I also hate it when they make stupid metaphors. You're building is like an i-pod, was something i heard in a recent review of another student's project.
in the words of my favorite bs'er, PHANTASMAGORIA!
now go make some more crappy watercolors that your genii will turn into something amazing, yet again. i drove 3 hours to watch you talk poop for 90 minutes and then when challenged utterly fail to justify anything, other than to say, "the watercolor, she looks good, no?" and isn't it the swoosh, not the schwing, which is german for oscillating...
I think my fav word for a wrapper of a building that just got fucked up is Facadomy.
orgasmic/ orgasmal
i think orgasmal is not even a word.
"...Frank Gehry's giant titanium coprolites."
coprolite=fossilized excrement
does that count?
who are u talking about meliasonvt?
"the ineluctable modality of the visible"
Joyce, can't remember whether it's Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake
oh shit, i was supposed to post something funny ... how about
"Volume Erector" or "Interchange Erectors"
i swear i saw these somewhere
i know alot of crits that like to use "big" words to make them selves look smart, but i spent some time looking up their definitions and im starting to believe they have no idea what they mean. here are some for example...
epistemological
ontological
(and my favorite) proper..as in a review proper.. please who really talks like this..haha
i know alot of crits that like to use "big" words to make them selves look smart, but i spent some time looking up their definitions and im starting to believe they have no idea what they mean. here are some for example...
epistemological
ontological
(and my favorite) proper..as in a review proper.. please who really talks like this..haha
oops, im new at this
epiphtye
lego
"cathedral of light"
"memorial"
substituting "pilotis" for "columns" in 100% of all cases
imagine if you will ...
or how about calling anything "modern" with an affected German accent
Un-toaster-like
not-front
blobonics
clompiness
"Mastrubatory"
Hahaha welcome to archinect Wiznerd!!! I stand by "untoasterlike" as a perfect descriptor for that project....
Sorry everyone this is GSA a inside joke. Carry on.
. This word should be, um, dead in the water.
f*ck that!
and also in spanish, whenever someone says something like: [/b]"TENGO QUE ATERRIZAR EL CONCEPTO"[/B] just give me the creeps....
duh!
I like it when building elements "begin to have a conversation".
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