As October draws to a close, I’ll devote these last four days to fleshing out the crit-talk lexicon. Please architects, do your damnest to use at least one of these words today. Otherwise, how will we know you’re smart? [all of these were heard on campus].
didactic
parallax
articulation
mimetic
non-mimetic
fragmentation
disjunction
juxtaposition
climax
developer-architecture (ouch!)
Since I’m not feeling very “rockstar-architect” of late, I’ve decided to take the pressure off and devote November to architectural analysis I care deeply about: scarves and hunter boots. November is Architecture school fashion month: boots, scarves, and tight pants. Summer was short-shorts and boots. Fall has been tight pants and boots. Scarves, scarves, and more scarves. One picture a day from Rem’s spaceship at Cornell………stay tuned.
Or does Jean Nouvel look like an evil super-villain…….
So, apparently this word (phrase?) is common in academic texts, but after reading several different sources, I still have no idea how to use it in context. Por exemplo:
Utterly simple. I think it’s code for: “I’m smarter than you. We both know this. You’ll forget to even look this word up later. No matter, it doesn’t exist in the dictionary, you fool!”
Multiply: Increase. Ramifying: Branch. So, increase branching? Can’t wait till I have the opportunity to slip the ole ‘increase branching’ discourse into my review. Someone will owe me a dollar when I get that guy in the mix! Kind of like at my wedding when I bet our buddy he couldn’t work “Dalai Lama” and “Sherpa” into the Best Man speech. He did it. Seemlessly. I’m still amazed.
Within a day of creating the architectural-obfuscation-station, I stumbled upon these gems in the spring course-listing. p.s. Rem didn’t use a single ONE of the words from my list. And he’s a professor. What the What? Clarity is convincing afterall.
Contemporaneity
Milieu
Tropes
Contrivances
Discursive
Formal significations
Hegemonic
Genericity
Conflations
Morphogenesis
Modalities
Overdetermined
Appropriated
Multiply-ramifying (huh?)
After two months of resisting, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that grad school reviews require conformity, or death. The following is my first iteration of THE LEXICON, a list of words I’ve compiled from my reviews and critiques. Words only made the list if I’ve heard them at least twice. The lexicon reminds me of one of my favorite client -phone-call games…..The “do-it-yourself architectural dialogue” matrix. Have fun! Impress your friends!
For More Fun with Architecture, try: Do-it-yourself-architectural-dialogue and Architecture Bingo !