do you think i should marry my professor?

Here's one in my friends studio during a pin-up.

Prof: This is good, ok this one is close, and this one....(a cup with a straw hanging out pinned on the wall) this is...this is just inappropriate."

"they need to make architectural sex"

-Crit

critic to student during thesis pinup:

"normally I wouldn't push a student to design a building for their thesis but . . . "

"Handicapped people are just ruining architecture." spoken with great drama and frustration.

This was in a studio where the buidling was required to meet ADA; do they still teach those anymore?

hm. i'd designing a building - one of the most exciting of my career to date - that's ABOUT serving people with physical disabilities.

from the director of the architecture school during a crit: "if the penguin is in the middle, how do you get light down into it?"

I've posted this on other threads, but it's one of my favorites:


critic: So why didn't you just make it symmetrical?

student: I don't really like ... symmetry.

critic: Do you like your face?

said by a prof to another student during a crit regarding a project sited in NYC:

"your project looks like a suburban dentist's office"

"wow, you've esigned a great big steaming pile of shit!"

It was visibly true, even if the design idea was pretty good.

A professor from an undergrad studio was doing desk crits and one of my friends was talking with him and was making good progress and kind of ahead. To which the professor responded:

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just slow down and put some curves in it."

at a review 5th year;

critic: do you love architecture?

prof during crit: "you're skating on thin ice that isn't even there."

which was true - the kid had no project and was still arguing with the reviewers.

visiting critic (husband of prof) to student: "Seriously-are you jerking me off!?"

visiting critic: "Is this even a part of your project?"

student: "No, but it could be."

Easily, one of the top 5 moments of my undergrad career. She had no project after 13 weeks and was trying to hide behind a tiny, though beautifully crafted model of a space that was nowhere to be found in the hand drawn (in prismacolor) floor plan she had pinned up.

In response to a blank, brick wall in a student's project:
"Is this a wall for dogs to pee on?"

Same reviewr, in response to a wedge-shaped corner in a project:
"What's up with this space here? Is this for triangle-headed people to stick their heads in?"

visiting critic (husband of prof) to yours truly during a mid-term crit:

"do you want to take this outside and settle it?"

ahh, nothing like being threatened bodily harm to get those creative juices flowing...

Critic: So what do the liquor bottles on your demographic map indicate?

Student: Homeless people.

I've posted this one before too:

critic: So exactly how big re these leather panels you've got here on your wall?

student: Well, the only limitation is the size of the cow.

that's hilarious.

instructur: "You like this, you think this is good?"

student (me): "well, I did until you asked me that, in that tone of voice..."

sevensixfive - let me guess who made the symmetry comment :P

student: 'i'm trying to produce something controversal'.

critic: 'i liked it more when i thought you were trying to be boring'.

critic (in response to a 9-square grid scheme): "This could be Hollywood Squares."

same critic, different project (as he rips off two object-like pavillions from a 1/16" model and holds them to his ear lobes): "These could be earrings."

we had a guest crit tell one student that their project "looked like a scary place rats would go to die"

hmmm, so the carbon emissions of the concrete don't count? and where can I get some of those scrubbers?

"Let me see that model... Maybe it will look better upside down... Actually, maybe it will look better upside down, on my head. There you go."

After winning a masonry design/build competition at our school one of our more notorious professors joined his studio in the dorms for a celebratory game of beer pong. As he threw the winning shot he held his arm extended outwards and proclaimed "And this is what architecture is all about..."

blu, i know this was not Don Wall....probably Matt Gossard or Batour.....

A classic, perhaps only an urban legend:

critic: "Here's a quarter. Go call your mother and tell her you're not going to be in architecture anymore."

in response to a friend's somewhat odd representation of planting:

tutor: "so, what kind of trees are these?"
friend: "um, they're-"
second tutor: "dead trees."


and in studio...

"i couldn't find NERDFERT in the catalogue so i asked at the desk and they hadn't heard of it, and i spelled it and told them it was the reference one with sizes of tables and lifts and stuff..."

three years in, and she'd used it before but never heard anyone call it by the real name.

Actually Beta, that was Dart. Believe it or not. What a glorious moment.

Another good one was Navin, Schuman and the grad adviser singing Karaoke down at McGoverns. Never thought I'd ever see Navin doing car bombs.

Correction Beta, Don Wall made the model comment, Dart was the pong player

" Architecture students need to drink lots and do lots of drugs"
- Wolf Prix


" architecture should be like rock'n roll"
- Wolf Prix




I paraphrased slightly.

A student presented a design for an elevated train station


Crit: I see the elevators but where are the stairs?

Student: well there arent any

Crit: No stairs?! everyones gonna miss the train.

professor "Im not really sure what I mean.......... you know what I mean?"

"So you've taken some refugee children, and in an effort to rehabilitate them, you're putting them in an underground bunker and taking away their shoes?"

To be fair it was a rubbish project...

Wolf Prix is the man. I saw him call Steven Perellia (sp?) a "Super Cyber Surfer-Man" during a panel discussion in Sydney. Priceless.

after a friend of mine bullshitted his way through his 1st studio crit ever...

'you should be a used car salesman'

A critic asked a student how a truss was being held up, considering that in the model it was resting on no columns or walls. The student replied "with glue", thinking the critic was asking how the scale model was built.

prof to the class: "...anyone got their steel book?(AISC manual), i want to show you what i'm talking about..."

student nearby hands his over book to the prof... prof thumbs through the pages then stopped and looks at the student "I hope this isn't your homework i'm lookin' at"

the prof then presented to the class the student's manual with a nice, neat, & full pot leaf pressed in the pages.

The one line I vivdly remember from school was an architectural history professor short conversation to a sleeping in class student.

Are you taking this class?

For credit?

Granted the room was dark and overly warm, and the material wasn't always exiting, but man that guy turned red.

"Here's a quarter. Go call your mother and tell her you're not going to be in architecture anymore." I witnessed this one in my undergrad...whew!!!

had a professor tell another student that their school project looked like a Cambodian concentration camp

A female student decorated her final project with glitter and stickers.

The critic: " I dont think I would put this in my portfolio for grad school admissions, you wont get in."

(This is easily the best thread I've seen in a long time!)

One of our first year studio instructors told a classmate that they had designed a "rape tunnel".

Gosh, I wish I had more but I can't think of any.....

professor: your building don't meet any building code.

the italian student from the Queens: just pay them off.

nothing like a professor attacking a student regarding an "alley" issue..... then comes the gator lock...... then the school year became grim and his class looked amongst our crew as the problem..... circa95ish (or 96)

b

Two Polish students at our school presented their design for an urban plan and our resident anarcho-syndicalist tutor told them it "looked like Auschwitz"

Heard this yesterday from a store clerk ABOUT architecture school:

"I really like AutoCAD so I think I would like to be an architect"

"come work for me...and be my slave"