Art Vandelay in 'Seinfeld'

Jason Alexander as George Costanza as Art Vandelay







Importer, Exporter, Architect
Art Vandelay might be as much as a cultural phenomonom as the Bilbao Guggenheim. His presence has spawned numerous t-shirts as seen above, and with the words 'I'm an architect' and 'the new addition to the Guggenheim' printed on them. At Moe's Southwest Grill, a national burrito chain, a special burrito is named 'the Art Vandalay'. There is even a firm in the Netherlands thats named Import/Export Architecture.

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)"

Tom Hanks in 'Sleepless in Seattle'

Tom Hanks as Sam Baldwin









Tom Hanks is a Chicago Architect who's wife dies (again), so he moves into a house boat in Seattle, is stalked by Meg Ryan and meets her on top of the Empire State Building. Romance and hilarity ensue. They hold hands in the end.

See Sam as he...

Quits his job in Chicago

Visits a construction site

Lives in an awesome house boat

The real kicker (other than the fact that Sam has a full sized plotter on his houseboat) is at the end when they show a dated CGI of the Empire State Building.


The year is 1993, my friends.

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.

Wesley Snipes in "Jungle Fever"

Wesley Snipes as Flipper Purify
Tim Robbings as Jerry Mast
Brad Dourif as Leslie Covington






In this film, Wesley Snipes plays an Architect who winds up sleeping with his new secretary. Flipper is a hard working, family man who is next in line for the big promotion at Mast & Covington, a New York design firm. He takes pride in his work, as is seen by this line of dialog between Flipper and his boss Leslie, "Leslie, look, Tony's work here is awful. He's got this elevator shaft 6" off where is supposed to be." He also works long hours....

Oops!

About midway though the movie, Flipper is up for review, where he demands to be made a partner. "Most of the money thats made in this company is because of me, do I have to remind you of how much work I've brought in here! Do you see that design up there, right under the Mast and Covington logo? Thats my design!" After Jerry and Leslie deny him this position, he signs his resignation, and goes to pack up his desk.

In film class I learned how to appear smart by pointing out the mis-en-scene to those less knowledgeable then me. Here, the two partners are standing up while Flipper is below them, and cornered against a wall, he will never make partner.

Planning on working out of his home until his own business gets off the ground, he comes home a few days later to a surprise. His wife just found out about his affair and is throwing all of his possessions out of their second story townhouse window. In an act of desperation, after losing his identity as a family man and a company man he tries to hold onto the only identity he has left by picking up his t-square and a set of drawings.

Its difficult to see, but he is holding onto the t-square and drawing tube

Henry Fonda in "12 Angry Men"

Henry Fonda as Juror #8









Sidney Lummet directed this 1957 drama about a dozen jurors. The sole voice of opposition against the Guilty verdict is an Architect, who uses his power of deduction and intellect to convince the other 11 men that the boy on trial.

The man in white

During a break of deliberation, #7, a salesmen, says to #8, "Hey, you a salesman or something? You sure got that soft sale down. Me, I'm really agressive, with jokes, tricks, stories..."
"No, I'm an architect," #8 replies.

The architect critics the circulation & flow of the crime scene

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.