Frank Ghery in 'The Simpsons'

Last night's episode of The Simpson's had Bart entering a model building contest with his model of the Westminster Abbey. He was pitted against Milhouse and Martin, who built OMA's CCTV Tower in Beijing, and Oscar Neimeyer's Brazilian Congress. I've been to one of these buildings, and I'll give you a hint *it hasn't caught on fire yet. I was really hoping that Milhouse's CCTV Model was going to catch fire as Super Intendant Chalmers walked by it, as in a reference to the MP Sketch as seen below.



In any case, this sighting of famous contemporary building reminded me that this isn't the first time that The Simpsons have lampooned modern architecture. In April of 2005 Frank Gehry stared as himself. This show made fun of the 'Bilbao Effect' with Marge trying to get Springfield on the map by constructing a new concert hall designed by the Canadian himself. I could right alot about this, but instead, I'm going to direct you to the posts that have already been written by A Daily Dose of Architecture, Veritas et Venustas, Architecture Enlightens Life, Mirage Studio 7, and DavidTeoh.com.

John Cleese in 'Monty Python'

John Cleese as Mr. Wiggin
of Ironside & Malone
Eric Idle as Mr. Leavy
of Wymus & Dibble






In this sketch, two architects makes very different pitches to real estate developers. One is absurd, and the other is just silly. Is it safe to say that sometimes we take ourselves to seriously? Now, I'm not advocating that we start designing buildings that look like giant picnic baskets or binoculars, but whats it hurt to step back and have a good laugh...

Luke Wilson in 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend'

Luke Wilson as Matt Saunders
Anna Faris as Hannah Lewis
Rainn Wilson as Vaughn Haige
Wanda Sykes as Carla Dunkirk





This is a horrible movie.

Drawings!

Architect Glasses!

Hard Hats!

Models!

"Our design integrates classic architectural ideas from the history of Chinese culture and transforms them into a contemporary 21st century aesthetic, but you can see clearly that funtionality has not been sacrificed, as you can see here by the the multiple entrances into the central courtyard area. And with the total capacity for...(stops talking as he sees his girlfriend fly by the window outside)"

Matt Dillon in 'You, Me and Dupree'

Matt Dillon as Carl Peterson
Michael Douglas as Mr. Thompson
Todd Stashwick as Tony






Matt Dillon, having already tried to a role where he is a character pretending to be an architect, now gets to try his chops pretending to be a character who is actually an architect. Here, he's married to his boss's daughter and has to deal with his best friend moving onto his couch.

Obligatory Drawing Shot

The first day back from his honeymoon, father in law Mr. Thompson takes Carl's proposal for a small 'eco-friendly' housing development and turns it into the largest, fast track development the firm has ever done. He also cuts out a few of the essentials...


Thompson: The Oaks at Mesa Vista, stunning, stunning...
Carl: You know sir, if we're not going to have any trees, maybe we should consider changing the name.
Thompson: No! no, no. I love the name. Names are important Carl.


When confronted with the model shown above, Carl doesn't like it.
Carl: What is this? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Is this some kind of a joke?
Tony: Carl, Thompson wanted more units. I thought it would work better as a wrap around.
Carl: Wrap around? Mesa Vista is not a wrap around.


Thompson: You see the preliminaries?
Carl: Yeah, I did. It is completely different from my original proposal.
Thompson: Goddammit Carl, would you stop fighting this? People buy homes, let the government pay for the parks, thats why we have taxes. The Oaks at Mesa Vista is a money train. You want to be on it?

Obligatory Standing in Front of Model Shot

Probably the best part of the whole movie is that Carl knows that the 'Bad Movie Design' is actually bad in real life. Although he states his opposition to the design, the movie never shows his original 'good design' thereby freeing our minds to believe that Carl might actually be good at what he does. Its a cheap trick, but it works...

Gary Cole in 'The Brady Bunch'

Gary Cole as Mike Brady
Steven Gilborn as Mr. Phillips








Gary Cole as Mike Brady, AIA finds out he has only a week to come up with $20,000 in back taxes to save his house. Unfortunately for him, he jumped right out of 1970 and into the early 1990's, where the effects of a recession are in full swing. Money is hard to come about, especially for an architect with limited design skills....



Mr. Phillips: A $20,000 advance! Ha, I'd like to Mike, but we're still hurting from the recession. I only have three developers comming all this week.
Brady: Let me have a shot at those projects, Mr. Phillips. If I can sell one of them my design, you can front me the advance, right?
Mr. Phillips: Sure, but... How should I put this delicately Mike? You designs are from another time.
Brady: Thats kind of you to say Mr. Phillips. I've always thought of my style as classic as well. I'll get right to work.


"What do you think?"
"I Love it, but its too interesting. I want something simple, a couple of self serve pumps and a slurpy machine. Sorry."


"And after much consideration Mr Swanson, I designed a structure especially for your needs. "


"The hardest thing about the health club business is getting people to leave their house."

Tom Selleck in "Three Men and a Baby"

Tom Selleck as Peter Mitchell








Three bachelors live by themselves in this 1980's showcase of absolutely no style and horrible situational comedy. Peter Mitchell is the architect who in the same day gets mixed up both in sudden single parenthood and illegal heroin trafficking. Hilarity ensues.

Like all comedy architects, we see Peter as he:

Deals with a baby on his Construction Documents

Cant find his Construction Documents

Points to something important on the job site

The best line of the whole movie is when Peter is trying to change the baby and he states, "I'm an architect for Christ sake, I build 50 story skyscrapers, I assemble cities of the future, I can certainly put together a goddamn diaper." The 50 story skyscraper in question is located on 56th btw 6th and 7th, as ascertained by the above picture. In the background, we see Phillip Johnson's AT&T building, which lead me to believe that the building he is building is this masterpiece:

Michelle Pfeiffer in "One Fine Day"

Michelle Pfeiffer as Melanie Parker
George Martin as Smith Leland







A day in the life of two single parents, George Clooney is a writer, Michelle Pfeiffer is an architect, both of whom didnt make it to drop off their kid at a field trip, so now they have to trade off kids while they do their business. Inbetween work and falling in love, George has to expose a political scandal and Melanie (Pfeiffer) has the biggest presentation of her life. As she lands the big account, the empowered woman learns that she can't do it all on her own. This film runs like a golden age romantic comedy and has some great, memorable dialoge between the two leads. Hilarity ensues and they kiss in the end.

This is the first film ArchitExploitation reviews with a woman as an architect. Quite an important point in a field that is mostly male, mostly white, and very control oriented. Watch Melanie as she ...

Sketches infront of clients at a bar!

Puts Hilariously out of scale toy cars in a model!

Awkwardly carries the model! I hope she doesn't drop it!

The best lines from One Fine Day come from the scene where the architect takes a model to be repaired at the model shop her firm runs. The model was damaged after Melanie was carrying the model, steped on a dinosaur her son was playing with and smashed the whole thing.

Melanie:How bad is it?
Model Shop Guy: Well, it modulal, so its concievable that I could life out the damaged portion and replace it with the same piece from the mock up so i wouldn't have to start from scratch. It wont be perfect. I know you Melanie, you won't be happy with less than perfect.
Melanie: Today, I will.

That today should be everyday for us all.

In life, I mean. Perfect your work you lazy fuckers.

Anthony LaPaglia in "The Architect"

Anthony La Paglia as Leo Waters







The Architect tells a tale of two families, one poor black family living in a southside Chicago project and the upper-middle class white family of the architect who designed the projects. It is great in that it deals with a many number of issues, cause and effect, HUD housing, and the ability of architecture and architects to create effective public housing, but not so great in the writing, acting, pacing and 'wtf' subplots.

Tonya Neely is the matriarch of the family living in the projects, where she is campaigning to get the buildings demolished. She shows up one day to confront that architect, Leo, who designed the building, an architecture professor at Northwestern University (false), and gets the runaround. Eventually, Leo takes it upon himself to make some architectural modifications to the buildings in hope that Tonya will quit her crusade to demolish his work.



Leo: I think you're going to be excited about what I've done here. OK, now this represents part of the problem. Each building is going to be resurfaced with the same glass facing. And then I'm going to open up the apartments, and use the glass atrium as a community porch. See, that way the residents have a place where they can interact and relax. Now, the sculpture in the middle unifies the whole design. Its a bekon, for the community. Aside from the external design, there are internal modifications and repairs than need to be taken care of...
Tonya: This doesn't solve anything, Mr Waters. There are systymic problems that go beyond repair.
Leo: Well, its not the design, it may be the excecution, but its not the design. Tanya, I was hired to build cheap homes. This was a state funded program. These are not luxury homes, Architecturally, this is a good design.
Tonya: People are lining up to leave. They are unhappy, they get sick.
Leo: Its mass housing. Mass housing does not cater to the individual needs of people. Look, you can redesign it, you can tear it down, but the problems are still going to be there. There will always be unemployment, there will always be drugs.
Tonya: Mr. Waters, they did not hire you to build houses, they hired you to house people. Can't you see this isn't about you, this is about so much more than you. We're not blaming you, clearly you put alot of work into this, but couldnt' you see from the state of the projects that they were beyond repair?
Leo: I redesigned this from my own original plans.
Leo's Wife: (butting in) You haven't seen them?
Leo: What?
Leo's Wife: You didnt visit them? I mean, things must have changed since you designed it. Did you want to see?
Leo: I didnt think it was necessary. I didn't want to cloud my perspective.
Leo's Wife: (who previously was infavor of the redesign) I think you should knock them down.

At the end of the film, Leo does visit the project and changes his mind. He signs Tonya's petition, only to be told that the vote was already passed, the building is scheduled to die.

Two interesting notes on the movie:
1) This is the second movie that I've reviewed in which Isabella Rosalleni plays the emotionally distant wife of an architect, the first being Fearless with Jeff Bridges
2) While the movie takes place in Chicago, the situation reminds me of Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis, a housing project that was built in 1956 and demolished in 1972.

Dennis Akayama in "Welcome to Mooseport"

Dennis Akayama as Izuki Nami









On November 18th of 2004, The William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library opened to the public. In February of the same year, Welcome to Mooseport opened in a theater nowhere near you, in fact I think it went direct to video, anyhow....

The plot of this movie involves an Ex-President (Gene Hackman) running for mayor against a small town handi-man. A subplot of the movie involves the President's contact with the architect that is designing his legacy, the Monroe "Eagle" Cole Presidential Library. This subplot involves three interactions, at the first interaction, the architect presents this piece of shit:



The Ex-President walks into the architect's studio.
Architect: I present to you the Monroe 'Eagle' Cole Presidential Library! European rationalism inter-woven with American Modernism, a metophor of organic growth, a man made mountain over which soars the Eagle!
Ex-President: Its fantastic! Is it big enough?
Architect: Its 40,000 square ft. sir
Ex-President: (to aide) Ben?
Ben: Clinton's is 20,000 sir.
Ex-President: Excellent!

Midway through the mayoral campaign, the president needs more cash to pay for his ads, posters and whatnot. This moneys for this endeavor are taken from the budget for the library, which doesn't get redesigned so much as subtracted...


Architect: Wha-la!
Ex-President: (nonchalantly) Thats it?
Architect: Nothing to it. You save 3 million dollars and look, still beautiful!
Ex-President: Excellent, excellent. I don't even miss it. (ex-pres leaves the office)
Architect: Son-of-a-bitch!

Towards the very end of the flick, the library takes some more cuts, and nobody cares but the architect. He sits at the model, crying, sobbing to himself, "It was so beautiful!"

Sorry architect, but it really wasn't.

Jeff Bridges in "Fearless"

Jeff Bridges as Max Klein
John de Lancie as Jeff Gordon








Long before Jeff Bridges played a free spirit in The Big Lebowski, Jeff Bridges played a free spirit in 1993's Fearless. The opening shot of the movie is Max walking through a cornfield, holding a baby, and we soon learn that hes walking away from a plane crash. This crash transforms him into a do as you please, don't give a damn, live life kinda guy. Through out the movie, we learn in a series of flashbacks to the moments right before the hydolics on the airplane go out that Max wasn't always a this person, he used to be a high strung, anxious, nervous wreck on an architect.

It really ties the room together

In these moments before the plane crash, Max and Jeff, his partner in the firm they own, are traveling from San Francisco to Houston to present a pitch to a company named 'Nutty Nick's'.
They are going over the awesome presentation that you see above when the plane goes haywire. After the crash, we really don't see Max do any architectural, other than taking Rosie Perez on a tour of Oakland while pointing out todos los edificios.

I'm debating between:
"Hey! Careful, Man! Theres a beverage here!"
&
"Oh, The usual. I bowl. Drive Around. Occasional acid flashback."

William Petersen in "Fear"

William Petersen as Steve Walker
John Oliver as Eddie Clark







Marky Mark terrorizes an architect's family in this thriller that is set in Seattle. Reese Witherspoon is the daughter of workaholic Steve Walker (CSI's Gil Grissom), an architect who is a paranoid about security. Luckily for him, his paranoia pays off, after Marky Mark's gang lays seige to Steve's state-of-the-art, automatic locked, bulletproof glassed, security camera'ed, lake house.

No magical mailboxes at this lake house

A sub-plot of the movie involves Steve's attempt to land the Vancouver account. Steve's coworker Eddie seems pretty fearful of everyone in the office losing there job. But, apparently Steves the best designer in the firm...

Eddie: The Swaggart Project went to the bad guys. We're on thin ice here. So now its the Vancouver job or bust.
Steve: Well, show me the drafts we got, I'll make the presentation myself.
Eddie: That's what I wanted to hear.

Steve does go on to make the presentation himself, and comes up with this...

He stayed up all night for this?

Eddie: Yes! You did it! This is great. This is a work of art! You think you can stay conscience long enough to crunch out the new numbers?
Steve: I've been living on pure adrenaline for 24 hours, why stop now?

Mark Wahlberg Talks to Architects

"You design buildings? I produce Entourage!
Say 'hi' to your mother for me."

Paul Newman in "The Towering Inferno"

Paul Newman as Doug Roberts








In 1974, Doug Roberts builds the tallest skyscraper in the world in San Francisco. At a total of 136 stories, I really don't want to do the math as to how tall this sky scraper is. I'm guessing well over a mile high though, judging by the ego's of the film's two stars, Newman and McQueen.

The opening credits: The Jetseting Architect

One hero is the Architect that must navigate the complicated plans and systems of this building for the film's second hero, McQueen's Fire Chief, to fulfill his job description. To those of you in the business out there, you'll be happy to learn that the film's villains are the contractor and the electrical engineer. These two skip on costs, use shoddy building material and 'only' build to code, which of course, is not what the architect spec'ed. In the end, the two heroes must blow up the water tanks above the penthouse of the tower to drown the conflagration.

The 136 story 'Glass Tower'

By Far, the best part of the movie is the brief encounters between Newman and McQueen.

Chief O'Hallorhan: [sighs] Architects.
Doug Roberts: Yeah, it's all our fault.
Chief O'Hallorhan: Now, you know there's no sure way for us to fight a fire in anything over the seventh floor, but you guys just keep building 'em as high as you can.
Doug Roberts: Hey. Are you here to take me on, or the fire?

Newman pretends to look at drawrings

Doug Roberts: [picks up ringing phone] Roberts.
Chief O'Hallorhan: It's out of control, and it's coming your way. You got about fifteen minutes. Now, they wanna try somethin'. They wanna blow those water tanks two floors above you. They think it might kill the fire.
Doug Roberts: How're they gonna get the explosives up here?
Chief O'Hallorhan: [after already having been given the task] Oh, they'll find some dumb son of a bitch to bring it up.

Breaking the rules:
Riding elevators while the building is on fire

Doug Roberts: I don't know. Maybe they just oughta leave it the way it is. Kind of a shrine to all the bullshit in the world.

Newman saves children

[last Lines ]
Chief O'Hallorhan: You know we were pretty lucky tonight, body count's less then 200. You know, one of these days, you're gonna kill ten-thousand in one of these firetraps, and I'm gonna keep eating smoke and carrying out bodies until someone asks us... how to build them.
Doug Roberts: Ok, I'm asking.
Chief O'Hallorhan: You know where to reach me. Goodbye, Architect.

Setting the C-4, Doug Roberts does his
best Howard Roark impression.

Adam Sandler in "Click"

Adam Sander as Michael Newman
David Hasselhoff as John Ammer
Jake Hoffman as Ben Newman

Michael Newman stands in front of the only semi-decent design in this piece of crap film.

Michael Newman is the typical workaholic architect in this comedy film. After a trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond, Newman finds himself in the possession of a remote that controls the universe. The film starts out with Newman late for a meeting with the Arab Prince Habeeboo (played by Rob "Dwerp" Schnieder), who commissioned a new resturant from Newman's firm, Ammer Architects, headed by John Ammer (David Haselhoff). Newman has the opportunity to present the design concept to the Prince

The Prince Habeeboo and John Ammer discuss high design.

"Prince Haboobie, when Mr. Ammer explained to me the type of man you are, a visionary who prides himself on originality, I said to myself 'Let's smash the mold and redefine elegance'. I present to you, your resturant!"

The awesomeness of it all.

The first question the prince asks, "Where is bar?". Then the prince demands that the bar be bigger, taking over the Atrium/Garden/Pond area. "No atrium, longer bar. And put drain in floor for wet T-shirt contest."
"You're kidding me!?!?" Michael responds.
"Well, he's right, water has to go somewhere Mike," Ammer says as he rips the model apart and pokes a drain into the foamcore with his pencil.
"I love it! It's Awesome!" exclaims the prince.
For those of you students out there, slaving away in studio, don't forget this very important lesson: Water does have to go somewhere.

Later, a chance to design a new hotel for a group of Japenese investors come up, Associate Michael Newman jumps at the chance thinking it will make him a partner. Taking the design home over fourth of July weekend, Michael works late into the night on this:

Angled walls always never a bad choice for good design.

As Michael tires of working, he decides to use the remote to fast forward through the weekend. Keep in mind, that in the movie they show that Michael acts like a braindead fool when he's on "Autopilot", so its no suprise that on Monday morning Mike shows up at the office with this plan:

"Its actually pretty good. Look, a river in the lobby! Cool"

However, Michael is actually suprised that his design is good. I guess he's also a bumbling idiot in real life. However, the Japanese investors don't give a damn. Once again, Mike is forced to sell out to maximize rooms and profit.

The Hoff debating the aesthetic qualities of his secretaries' toenail colors

Who would have guessed, but the remote control starts to develop a mind of its own, and forwards Michael 10 years into the future. How do we know its the future?

In the future, architects still love Barcelona chairs and the Eames chairs.


In the future, all architects will ride segways around the office while carrying brightly colored drawing tube on their back. Why can't this future be now?

Michael Newman now holds the title of "Architect of the Year". I can only assume that the Prizker foundation decides to alter their prize of have been completely wiped out of existence.

In the future, the success of the Freedom Tower leads to the construction of a second, identical Freedom Tower.

In some movies, the architect is supposed to be a cultivated man, a thoughtful man, someone who thinks through problems, is a romantic, or creative. In Click, Sandler's role as an architect is used for two main purposes. The first, as a workaholic, he seems like a great candidate for the Angle of Death (played great by Walken) to give his time remote control to. The second, we get a reminder of how the future is represented by the built environment. If a hospital door opens like a door from the USS Enterprise, it must be the future. Unfortuanly, Newman plays the architect not as the sophisticate, but as the common man who kicks people in the balls and farts in their face. But hey! Who doesn't enjoy a good laugh at a dog banging a stuffed duck?

The aesthetics of the furniture and decor of this frame serve as a reminder that the setting is the present day.