Architecture in comedy

Architecture in comedy

Architecture is serious business and architects do their best to radiate seriousness. This is probably why architects and architecture are not among the favourite subjects of comedy, together with all other pompous professions - or maybe it's because architects, despite their desire for gentrification, never managed to become real authority figures, so they do not attract (or merit) ridicule as much.

If you ask an architect what their favourite film on architecture is, they'll probably say The Fountainhead or something similarly earnest or artistic. Mine has to be a comedy: Mr Blandings builds his dream house. It has everything: city folks desirous of living in the country; an architect powerless to control clients or builders; a builder who's a bit of a cheat - and all the trimmings of a clever American comedy of the 1940s.

There are two parts that really make me laugh. The first is when Mr Blandings gets advice from various builders as to what to do with the house he has just bought in the country. In a sequence of quick cuts everybody tells him to tear it down - I love it when experts agree. The second is when Mrs Blandings meticulously specifies the colours of the interiors by reference to all kinds of stuff including a specific kind of butter; the builder just nods, accepts samples and when she leaves he turns to his painter and says: "White, green, yellow ...".

The same had happened to me when I was a student and had taken a job with a construction firm that was building a factory for a Japanese company. The Japanese engineers who were supervising the project were quite precise; one day they insisted that some railings should be painted in a particular RAL value. My boss was mystified and asked me to find out what the colour was (and what RAL was). I explained it was a yellow hue, so he summarily decided on the standard yellow colour the firm was using in all projects. The result made the Japanese happy. Proudly they told me that it was thanks to them insisting on using RAL. Standardization helps communication, they said.