At the office

At the office

If Were to catalogue comedy taking place in an office, it would result into a huge list relating to the social aspects of office life. Tati's Playtime also focuses on the physical aspects of the modern office and the alienation it may cause. The enormous, purpose-built set that contributed to Tati's bankruptcy following the making of this film is quite often not the background but the subject to the comedy. The only problem is that while Tati once again points out the absurdity of what we take for progress, his solution seems to be just regression to earlier patterns of life. He may have been right, though: office life hasn't improved much since the making of this film, despite repeated promises, including recent attempts and informality and playfulness.

This is evident in a more recent film, where physical aspects also play a prominent role: Office space. It's a film primarily about bullying: how office layout can be used to oppress people. It is quite different from Playtime but it too makes clear how the peripersonal space that dominates human activities and interactions in an office never fails to affect us. If one wants to harm us, they'll find many opportunities in our peripersonal space.

So, I come to the idea that Tati, despite his masterly grasp of affordances, couldn't give us an alternative because Playtime was less about peripersonal space and more about architectural style and the wider cultural changes associated with it. As for architects, this space remains a major challenge. Until they manage to focus on it and find some solutions, comedy will make thankful use of office spaces.

The plank

The plank

I can't remember when I'd first seen The plank but I must have been very young because I had no idea who Tommy Cooper was, let alone Eric Sykes - and Cooper I knew and admired by the time I entered adolescence and started thinking about what I liked in comedy. Sykes became another firm favourite later on, so the indelible memories of The plank that made me spend quite some time looking for a video tape of this film (that was long before the Internet) were fully justified by later comedic experiences.

The plank is classed under slapstick but it's mostly subtle and slow, largely gentle, drawing from centuries of theatrical experience with the physical comedy one can derive from a long object and its handling. The eponymous plank remains the centre of attention, complemented by a rich collection of amusing incidents, some familiar and predictable and others more original, like when Sykes insists on opening a paneless window to get a bottle of milk from the milkman standing outside and Cooper closing the window later because he's feeling the draft.

When it comes to comedy about building, The plank is to my knowledge the only film fully dedicated to the subject - as opposed to having some slapstick related to building at some point in the film. In its old-fashioned, slow-paced way, it remains a monument to what a great generation of comedians knew and managed to preserve.

Functional comedy

Functional comedy 

What people call "function" in architecture (a term I consider quite misleading) is a frequent sort of bemusement and frustration. It's not surprising, therefore, that it is a frequently used source of comedy: many comedic situations arise from mismatches between what users want to do and what a building affords. The combination of architects and "function" in not as common; in fact, I'm aware of only one instance: Monty Python's The architects sketch, where Cleese proposes to design an apartment block as a slaughterhouse as if it were the most normal thing for a residential building. To the apparent disbelief of the clients he responds in a similarly matter-of-fact manner: he hadn't fully divined their attitude towards the tenants. 

This is textbook comedy, based on the displacement of an activity in an alien context with disastrous results. It's a pity that architects don't realise that they also produce comedic moments when they dare propose new-fangled ways for doing things without properly appreciating the consequences. At least, we should laugh more at many proposals architects make in the firm belief that they know better than their users, that they can shape and better the users' lives.

Things that can go wrong with a model

Things that can go wrong with a model 

Architectural models attract attention to an almost fetishist level. Students have to make them, clients want them, every museum visitor enjoys them. Few have the courage to that them as tools of the trade. I remember one teacher who used to dismantle student models, almost physically attacking them while asking interesting questions about composition and alternatives. After that, one learned not to put too much time in their models and expect the worst.

In comedy, if something goest wrong with a model, it can be funny without getting too hurtful (we're getting rather sensitive about such things, robbing physical comedy of many opportunities like pratfalls). In Monty Python's The architects sketch, a spontaneous combustion and collapse of the model momentarily embarrasses the architect and, by the strange acceptance of the design by the clients, facilitates a jump to the subject of how to recognise a Mason. The most interesting thing about the model is the association between it and the behaviour and performance of the real building: that the model catches fire suggests that the building is highly flammable, despite the architect's claims; similarly, the instability of the model suggests failure of the load-bearing structure, which the architect is quick to admit. I suppose that the association between model and building is justified by that both are three-dimensional objects. This makes us forget the scale differences and the consequent differences between a simulation and the real thing.

As for what happens to the model  in One fine day, the least said, the best for all who have seen that forgettable comedy.

Does it matter that they're architects?

Does it matter that they're architects?

In romantic comedy architecture often appears as an interesting profession, probably because of its associations with creativity and sensitivity. However, it often seems to have little if any added value for the comedy itself: the architects in One fine day, HouseSitter or 3 men and a baby could have been anything: interior decorators, artists, writers - anything that would ascribe them similar secondary characteristics. Of course, it doesn't help that the three examples aren't great comedies, uninspiring in more than one respects. Why should the architect characters be better than the rest of the film?

On the other hand, there is good comedy directly deriving from architects and their clients in Monty Python's The architects sketch. The comedy comes from distorting the character of the architects, their intentions and social or professional functions. But then, one could never accuse the Pythons of being into rom-com - not even in A fish called Wanda. So, I conclude that it's rom-com that can't take advantage of architecture as a subject, not comedy in general. I suspect that the reason is that it would cause an internal conflict that would confuse or even alienate viewers.

Dream house backdrop

Dream house backdrop 

Father came too!, the Scottish variation on the theme of the dream house is a well-produced comedy of the 1960s, a time when British films were clever and refreshing. It relates the perils of refurbishing an old cottage for a newly-wed couple. Unfortunately, as the title suggests, the building activities are more of a backdrop to the power struggle between the husband and his father-in-law )played with a typically larger-than-life attitude by James Robertson Justice). It compares unfavourably to the directer relation between the Blandingses and their new dream home, as well as the new home's catalytic role in personal relationships and situations. Nevertheless, building activities in Father came too! provide more than enough grounds for funny situations, generally focusing on the ineptitude of DIY-beginners and the shiftiness of contractors and worked. It's interesting to see such versions of stereotypes which still exist in British comedy.

The dream house

The dream house 

One of the few architectural  subjects in comedy is the dream house: a pride and joy that turns into trouble. The Blandings family in Mr Blanding builds his dream house suffers from its naive attitude towards the tricky issues and devious people in the real estate and building trade. This does not apply to their architect, who is not coincidentally the only straight character in the film; he is just a helpless in-between. The Blandingses even come close to the brink of collapse but in the end they triumph and live happily ever after. That's sympathetic comedy for you: even if you feel superior to the naive heroes of the film, you want them to succeed and feel glad for them if they manage to do it, yet still have a laugh at their tribulations.

A different kind of sympathy is what they try to elicit from the viewer in comedies like HouseSitter and The frighteners. In both cases, the hero is an architect who started building a dream house for the love of their life: the dream house is not a goal but part of the background, something that gives their architect owners a tragic dimension and makes us wish them well. Especially in The frighteners, the ghostly half-finished dream house is a powerful setting that works well (HouseSitter fails in that respect, as it does in most respects - it feels strange to praise a film with Michael J. Fox and dismiss one by Frank Oz with Steve Martin). In fact, it works on two levels because it also becomes a goal in the end.

What makes the dream house interesting is that it's not just a possession: it's the container of a dream life with a dream companion. As a comedic setting it gives opportunities for physical comedy and provides rich metaphors. But it's the emotional power of a desired state for both the house and its occupants that plays in the sympathy of the viewers. We don't care if the Blandings home may prove a costly affair in maintenance the shoddy way it must have been built; we can share their relief and joy for the present and hope for the best in the future. After all, houses are always causes of trouble - we're used to that.

A study in affordances

A study in affordances 

I say Jacques Tati's Mon Oncle as a young teenager and have since remained ecstatic about it. It's a masterpiece and a comedy - all I need to make me feel happy and full of admiration. Interestingly, much of the comedy is about human interaction with buildings. It bears many similarities with Gibson's theory of affordances and was made around the same time that Gibson was publishing his books on the subject. It might be a coincidence but I suspect that there are underlying reasons for the wider interest in human interaction with the world: the modernisation of the world and the emphasis on the individual following the Second World War. But even if it's a coincidence it's a film architects should study to understand how easily things can go wrong if one insists on one's one vision and forgets what the vision is about and for whom. In fact, I've been using extracts of the film to introduce affordances to designers. Comedy provides the best view to the human condition, a distorted and exaggerated one, but exactly for this reason the clearest I know of. Philosophers may give us transparent argumentation but comedy is so immediate that it can tell the same in a much shorter space. Thinking and discussing comedy, moreover, tends to be much more pleasant, too.

Fake

Fake 

I remember watching a documentary on the great Ealing comedy, The Ladykillers. It was some time ago and as usually I was more listening than watching, so many details escape me, but for the first time I realised that Mrs Wilberforce's lopsided house wasn't real. In fact, most locations were distorted to fit the story. This occurs in many films: we see some actor turn a corner, then there is a cut and we see the actor in another street. We naturally assume that it's the street around the corner but in reality it's a different street, one that's more suitable to the film. In The Ladykillers they did that  apparently a lot but they also actually built the lopsided house at the end of a street, using no right angles to achieve the desired comedic effects. I don't know how realistically they built it because there are scenes on the roof and several shots from a distance but the house appears quite real to me - exactly what one would expect from the home of the delightful Mrs Wilberforce. The combination of decay, disrepair, memories of a better life and proud acceptance of reduced circumstances makes the house and its owner quite believable in a comedy full of wonderful caricatures and lots of interaction with the environment. The Ladykillers has been one of my favourite films ever since I watched a rather poor copy on black-and-white television and every time I have the opportunity to watch it again my appreciation of it increases. It's also interesting from an architectural viewpoint, both for the way architecture contributes to the comedy and for the way they faked the built environment. In a sense, this is exactly what often happens in architectural design: what matters is the impression one gives to clients, users, juries etc. If the design can exist in reality, that's a different matter.

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.