I've always wanted to pretend I'm an architect.
My dad is an architect, and the architect as romantic-movie-role has been a running gag as long as he remembers. I think the 'artistic, but has a real job that he shows up for work for in the mornings,' thing explains it. He's supposed to be sensitive, but not annoyingly artsy.
I think there's also an underlying masculinity to architecture that doesn't obtain in the other arty professions. After all, architects *build* things! Building is a boy activity! Whew, he's straight!
1: Despite the best efforts of some of us, Seinfeld allusions reamin dispreferred in these parts. But I appreciated it.
As a Brit, the phrase 'spunky protagonist' makes me laugh ...
3: Clearly, no one hanging around an NYC architectual firm in the 70s would have come up with this stereotype. But I suppose everyone Dad worked with was either straight or seriously all the way out.
I know there's at least one non-strung-out-on-cocaine-and-speed architecture student who lurks here -- I wonder if he'll weigh in.
The pulling all nighters all the time, though, that seems about right.
Despite the best efforts of some of us, Seinfeld allusions reamin dispreferred in these parts.
Anti-Semitism!
Sure sign it is a lame writing technique: Ayn Rand used it.
I think that might be too broad a rule, didn't Rand use, for example, punctuation?
every architecture student I knew in college was strung out on speed or cocaine
This, certainly. The campus police came to me, as the responsible party in our house, to say they had suspicion the guy was dealing. I said probably not: just using so heavily that legally it amounts to the same thing. They didn't think that was funny.
I think it's the 'artsy, but respectable and hard-working' vibe. But the really amusing part is that they're never architects that design warehouses or storage lots or airplane hangars, but the ones that design gorgeous skyscrapers or opera houses.
In college, the best roommate was an architecture student, because she would never be home and would never have a boyfriend over, so you pretty much lived in single the size of a double.
11: I've become very suspicious of the word "shrugged" in any context.
I think there's also an underlying masculinity to architecture that doesn't obtain in the other arty professions. After all, architects *build* things! Building is a boy activity! Whew, he's straight!
Then why aren't there more movies with abstract expressionists as romantic interests?
Also, there are several movies with gay architects. But I haven't seen them so I can't comment on what their characters are like. (The Stepford Wives, Poseidon, It's My Party)
Another thing for the movie role -- buildings are more accessible on film than lots of other stuff. If you've got a character who's supposed to be a painter, it's going to be really hard to come up with impressive modern art that a big chunk of the movie-going audience won't find silly, but a construction site looks impressive just through sheer size.
Isn't the architect-as-love-interest motif a stand-in for the desire to have and inhabit a really nice-looking house?
18:
The construction site therefor being a phallic symbol.
18:
The construction site therefor being a phallic symbol.
I might add that, for workplace situations, the architect also offers a visually interesting office - drafting tables, models, and style that would be absurdly unrealistic in most [corporate] offices.
3: Maybe Middle America thinks architects are straight, but it's certainly the gayest profession (using that as a term of art). Anyone who's urban and/or went to college with architects would know this.
13: Actually, I've most often noticed that the architect's work is elided almost entirely. Not that a sitcom should feature Howard Roark-style disquisitions on form and function, but it's funny how rarely they even indicate whether the guy is doing houses or hospitals - kind of makes for a different personality, office, hours, etc.
As Arthegall's non strung out on coke and speed architecture friend (still in school), I'm going to agree that the movie architect cliche is a bust. Most young architects are pulling all nighters in school and then weekends for no overtime at a firm that is struggling just as hard as they are. The few architects who have steady jobs and don't work long hours are either already independently wealthy or actually cad-monkeys. It's a ponzi profession. Please legitimize it Brad Pitt.
Rant aside. Take a look at this link which talks about the sexiest professions for men and women. "Architect" is in the top 10 for both sexes. But the #1 spots are held by "Human rights Campaigner" and "Pediatrician".
Funny how "academic" makes it onto the list for men but not women. I'm going to have to change my dating pool.
Oh, and Becks, great post title.
And very, very true.
19 is probably a really good point.
Best architect movie ever: Belly of an Architect. In which Brian Dennehy does not quite fit the stereotype.
Here's another sexy job survey that puts "fire fighter" and "flight attendant" at the top of the list.
I'll be the guy sitting the back of the plane with the fire extinguisher.
a construction site looks impressive just through sheer size.
. . . and expense. Movie architects have a certain connotation of glamorous wealth -- even if they're not supposed to be rich personally, they're connected to riches through their projects in a way that painters or novelists aren't.
Oh, it's been a cliche for a long time. Tom Stoppard went after it in The Real Thing, with his not-very-good-play-within-a-play being about an architect (and called House of Cards, no less). The (fictional) playwright's daughter summed up the play with a shrug and a sigh: "Infidelity among the architect class. Again."
And that was in 1982.
I'm calling baloney on mrPoonans's link because it include "IT workers".
This pains me because I'm an engineer (#6) going into academia (#7) to study environmental science (#2).
The protagonist of "La Moustache" was made an architect for no apparent reason, as he's already married, isn't particularly charming, and isn't shown doing his job at any point, except for coming in one day and then leaving in a huff.
Can we make a canonical list of works in which the romantic male lead is an architect?
Other formulaic rom-coms included "Three to Tango", "Housesitter", "Return to Me", and "Something New" (although not a building architect, a landscape architect).
Also, I think Zach Braff was an architect in "The Last Kiss", although it's not exactly formulaic or a comedy. Was the main character in the original Italian "Last Kiss" an architect too?
Most recent fairly bad movie I've seen was My Super Ex-Girlfriend, last week. Schlumpy protagonist it's almost impossible to care about, though if we don't, there's no point to the movie: an architect.
There's Something About Mary lampoons the architect-as-romantic-love-interest idea.
"Damn these Napalese Coins!"
The female counterpart, of course, is the protagonist's doctor wife. Plenty of those around.
The best movie realisation of an architect's studio (sorry, atelier): Doug Roberts' set up in The Towering Inferno. I recall that Doug's wife was on call in his private office to help relieve the pressures of the busy work environment.
The architect in There's Something About Mary seems to have been modelled on the real life architect Piers Gough. The similarities are too many for coincidence.
The Lake House? Great dance scene. And featuring architect dad; maintainer of the Beaux Arts traditions, sketching out 1:1 details of acanthus leaf capitals on his death bed.
#31: Charles Bronson in Death Wish. Paul Newman in The Towering Inferno.
I'm calling shenanigans on #23's list of top male professions, too. I'm not believing that women think IT guys are sexier than architects.
Last fall's "Blueprint for a Hollywood hunk" was The Guardian's take on the topic.
Can I second ttaM's delight at the thought of a spunky heroine? I had thought nothing about the breeding habits of the unfoggedariat could surprise me, but Becks had always seemed so normal up till now.
The atelier in The Lake House is apparently supposed to be in the Chicago Auditorium Building, designed by Sullivan and, for a while, the location of Frank Loyd Wright's studio (it's actually now a university). So at least there's some good inside baseball there.
And there is, famously, a spunky heroine in the British sense in There's Something About Mary.
Something about my online dating profile of two years ago attracted a lot of architects in their early 30s. A good number of them were involved with kitchen remodeling, most of them hated their clients, and two of them defined their work as 'convincing yuppies that they don't need a granite countertop.' Not glamorous.
29 & 35 make the same mistake, considering the marginal probabilities -- Pr{Attractive(IT-Professional)} and Pr{Attractive(Architect)}. But in fact, you should be taking slices through your joint distribution here: conditioned on a subject of otherwise-identical qualities, is the programmer or architect the more attractive job?
I used to work with architects who were all very bitter about Paul Brady (paterfamilias of the Bunch), mostly because the show gave them unrealistic expectations about the lifestyle they would be able to afford in that profession.
Too late, I know, but I should've said this 6 hours ago: most of my classmates were major acid-eaters (this in the early 90s). I don't know of any classmate who did coke or speed, but it could explain the half-dozen assholes whom I couldn't stand - they seem like they would've been cokeheads.
Me, I always switched to Hawaiian Punch around 4 am as a comedown from the caffeine and carbonation of Pepsi & Mt. Dew. I suppose there was some sugar content there.
#31:
Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle
The protagonist, Ted, on How I Met Your Mother
Give me another 30 seconds and I'm sure I'll come up with some more.
Paul Brady
I think that was Mike Brady, wasn't it?
39: Whoa! That actually makes things a lot clearer. The survey in #23 probably considered the difference in their polling, while the survey in #26 (which reads more like a strip club roster) did not.
Too bad statisticians didn't make it onto any list at all. Although, come to think of it, my extraordinarily hot cousin was a statistics major at Berkeley.
Tom Selleck's character in 3 men and a baby, etc.
I'm amazed at how few engineers are required in movie land... though they do occasionally introduce them as demolitions experts.