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.

Bill Campbell in 'Enough'

Bill Campbell as Mitch Hiller








In 2002 Hennifer Yopez stared in this theater release that should have been a Lifetime Original. Mitch Hiller is an architect who seems like the perfect husband until he starts beating his wife.


As the movie progresses from nonviolent fairytale to super psycho stalker film to exploitation revenge movie, Mitch moves from a Colonial style two story suburban home into a super sleek beach house that is poured concrete and steal beam. Hilarity does not ensue, and she kills him in the end.

Michael Keaton in "White Noise"

Michael Keaton as Jonathan Rivers








Whats that? Another movie with an architect who's wife dies? Then he gets messages from beyond the grave? Sounds like a winner!

Too Many TVs are Spooky.

You see the Ring and then you die. Oh, wrong movie. I get these things confused sometimes.

Brian Dennehy in "The Belly of an Architect"

Brian Dennehy as Stourley Kracklite
Lambert Wilson as Caspasian Speckler








American architect Stourley Kracklite comes with his young wife Louisa to Rome to supervise an exhibition devoted to Etienne-Louis Boullée, a French architect of the 18th century. Suffering from severe abdominal pains, Stourley doesn't pay much attention to his pregnant wife, and she finds consolation in the arms of suave Caspasian Speckler. Built from rigidly symmetrical images, the film has quite an unusual subject: the belly -- both the sick one of the architect and the pregnant one of his wife, the rounded forms alluding to the spherical constructions designed by Boullée, the architect whose visionary projects seldom materialized. Beautifully shot on location in Rome, this ironic fable wittily examines the issues of artistic creativity.
~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide



If I have learned anything from the last two movies, its that only American architects are allowed to have fun. Anyway, I added the plot summary from Yuri above because I couldn't have said it better myself. Again, this movie is loaded from beginning to end with studio settings, quotes on working, living and thinking like an architect, that I can't sufficiently summarize it in a few paragraphs. As the movie progresses, Kracklite becomes more and more insane. He writes postcards to the dead architect he is celebrating, he photocopies pictures and sketches of stomachs endlessly, he punches a lot of people in the nose, starts to believe that his wife is trying to poison him and his colleagues are plotting against him.

Of course, during all this insanity, his wife does nothing to make him feel better.
Architect: Tell me please, what does 'oh-ahhh' mean?
Wife: Stourley, you've built six-and-a-half-buildings. And now you're spending nine months putting on an exhibition in memory of another architect who also built practically nothing.
F3!


Of the whole movie, there is one thing that I have to comment on because of its originality. When Kracklite goes to visit a doctor about his stomach pains, the doctor asks what symptoms the architect has.
Not wasting even a moment, the architect says "Why yes, I've been documenting the symptoms."
Here, we would expect a verbal account of whats going on, the sensations that are being felt, an emotional expression of the pain that is spoken. However, the architect proceeds to take out a folder and hand the doctor more than a dozen sketches over photocopies of stomachs, frenzied drawings of red, orange and yellow. Images that are grotesque yet beautiful,images that convey the silent suffering that the architect endures throughout the last months of his life.

Matt Dillon in "Something About Mary"

Matt Dillon as Pat Healy as Pat Healy the Architect
Lee Evans as Norm the Pizza Guy as Tucker the Architect







Although there are no real architects in this movie, two of the characters pretend to be architects to win the affections of Mary, a woman who thinks architects are sexy. Hilarity ensues.

Pat Healy the PI as Pat Healy the Architect

One of the best lines occurs when Mary drags Pat to the architecture exhibit. After Pat tries repeatedly to hurry things up and leave the place fearing that he may be found out, they run into Tucker, who exacerbates the Pat's anxiety.

Tucker: Where have I seen your work?
Pat: Well, have you been to, uh well, let me see... Santiago, Chile?
Tucker: Twice last year. Which building's yours?
Pat: Are you familiar with the soccer stadium?
Tucker: Did you build the Estadio Olimpico?
Pat: No, just down the street the Celinto Catayente Towers. It's quite a fine example, in fact. I recommend that next time you're up that way that you drop in and take a gander at it yourself.

Norm the Pizza Guy as Tucker the Architect

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

Mark Ruffalo in "Just Like Heaven"

Mark Ruffalo as David the Landscape Architect








Ok, so its another movie where the architect's wife is dead and he starts to see spirits. But instead of mean ghouls, he sees cute-as-a-basket-of-kittens Reese Witherspoon. And they fall in love. But she's not dead, shes in a coma! So he builds her a garden. Then they kiss at the end. Seriously, if Reese wasn't in this movie I would have turned the movie off. The only way they could have made the movie worse is if they cast Napoleon Dynamite in a role. Whats that? Oh, they did cast Napoleon Dynamite in a role! I do this stuff in the name of research, kids, all for you.

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