.
A few things you may not have know about famous Architects:
- Antoni Guadi invented the internet and it was originally made of tile
- Le Corbusier was afraid of spiders as well as traditional urban street patterns
- Mies Van Der Rohe had an enormous collection of garden gnomes
- Frank Llyod Wright was legally blind, and allergic to poison oak
- Calatrava has a rare kidney disease that causes water to divert around him and everything he designs
- Claude Ledoux was not French
- Rem Koolhaas is neither cool nor an Avocado
- Charles Moore did not invent the shed roof, he did invent key parties
- Louis Kahn was sexually aroused by board formed concrete
- So is Ando
- So am I
- Steven Holl doesn’t really like natural light. And it doesn’t care for him either
- Aldo Rossi was killed in a car crash. The car was cylindrical, and red. (miss you Aldo)
- Michael Graves has never been to Target.
- Snohetta is a made up name.
- So is MVRDV, actually those are just letters, they mean Medium Very Really Driving Very…That makes more sense in Dutch
- B.I.G. starred Tom Hanks
- Thomas Jefferson was genetically predisposed to the color black. Also, his left leg was shorter than his right causing him to veer to the West when he walked
- I.M. Pei is only 2 feet tall, and triangular, and underground
- Philip Johnson taught my high school gym class. He used to look at me in a way that made me uncomfortable. Plus, he changed his lesson plan every day. One day it was dodgeball, the next day it was Post Modern dodgeball. He gave me a C minus and a rash
- Herzog and De Meuron are conjoined twins. De Meuron is actually a perforated shell surrounding Herzog
- Alvar Aalto was really, really, really cold. Seriously, he was freaking freezing
- The Greene brothers were neither green nor brothers
- Palladio was not an Architect. He was a mason with OCD. He was just trying to even everything out. One on the left, one on the right, two on the left, two on the right, a big one in the middle, repeat. He also made his own bread, and smelled like olive oil
- S.O.M. fired John Evans, Richard Oswald, David Nivens, and Elliot Ewing in the early 20s to avoid being known as S.O.M.E.O.N.E.
- H.O.K. sucks
- Frank Gehry can not use a computer, under court order. He is required to be at least 500 yards away from any electronic device at all times. He also pays alimony to an ex-hooker named “Titanium”
Want to add you own little know Architectural fact? Give it a try in the comment section below. What don’t we know about:
Robert A.M. Stern?
Go easy on him, I think he knows people in the mob.
Jody Brown { coffee with an architect }
.
.
photos are from Kevan’s photostream on Flickr (used under creative commons license)