“Manhattanism is the one urbanistic ideology that has fed, from its conception, on the splendors and miseries of the metropolitan condition – hyper-density – without once losing faith in it as the basis for a desirable modern culture. Manhattan’s architecture is a paradigm for the exploitation of congestion.”
Back in architecture school we used to joke around that to be a great architect you had to have a badass sounding name. This was largely driven by the fact that so many famous architects were/are European and so they had/have more unique sounding names – at least to us.
Think Rem Koolhaas, Bjarke Ingels, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier (actually Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris), Alvar Aalto, and so on.
There are of course lots of great non-European architects and lots of names that don’t sound as badass as the ones listed above. But that didn’t stop of us from perpetuating the belief that you needed a badass name.
So what could you do if your name wasn’t badass enough to be a famous architect? Well we applied the principles of architectural spoonerism. That meant we switched around the first letter of your first name with the first letter of your last name to create a new architectural identity.
Sometimes this worked beautifully, but sometimes it didn’t work at all. In my case, I became Drandon Bonnelly, which is arguably a bit more badass. But the best example is that of my friend Alex Feldman. He became Flex Aeldman. Now that’s badass. He sounds like an architect bodybuilder.
“Manhattanism is the one urbanistic ideology that has fed, from its conception, on the splendors and miseries of the metropolitan condition – hyper-density – without once losing faith in it as the basis for a desirable modern culture. Manhattan’s architecture is a paradigm for the exploitation of congestion.”
Back in architecture school we used to joke around that to be a great architect you had to have a badass sounding name. This was largely driven by the fact that so many famous architects were/are European and so they had/have more unique sounding names – at least to us.
Think Rem Koolhaas, Bjarke Ingels, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier (actually Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris), Alvar Aalto, and so on.
There are of course lots of great non-European architects and lots of names that don’t sound as badass as the ones listed above. But that didn’t stop of us from perpetuating the belief that you needed a badass name.
So what could you do if your name wasn’t badass enough to be a famous architect? Well we applied the principles of architectural spoonerism. That meant we switched around the first letter of your first name with the first letter of your last name to create a new architectural identity.
Sometimes this worked beautifully, but sometimes it didn’t work at all. In my case, I became Drandon Bonnelly, which is arguably a bit more badass. But the best example is that of my friend Alex Feldman. He became Flex Aeldman. Now that’s badass. He sounds like an architect bodybuilder.
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
It’s obviously extremely difficult to predict what will happen in the world by 2100, but to the extent that forecasting is possible, the world’s population is expected to reach somewhere around 11.2 billion people. Today it’s 7.3 billion.
The bulk of this growth is expected to happen first in Africa, and then in Asia. By 2100, Africa’s share of the global population is expected to grow to 39% and Asia’s share is expected to decline to 44%.
If you’ve been following population trends, most of this shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. The meaningful population growth happening in the world today is happening in the developing world.
That’s why architects, such as Rem Koolhaas, have been studying cities like Lagos (Nigeria) since the late 1990s and early 2000s. Below is a photo from a book/research project that I love called Mutations (2000). I pulled it from my bookshelf this morning.
It’s interesting to think about what all of this will mean for the global economy and for global governance.
The United States is about to be alone when it comes to advanced economies with a globally competitive population. Europe is shrinking, which leads me to believe that a strong EU is likely important. And we now have lots of megalopolises with big populations, but with very low income levels.
What’s your badass architect name? Let us know in the comment section below. Perhaps we can dethrone Flex as the best one out there.
It’s obviously extremely difficult to predict what will happen in the world by 2100, but to the extent that forecasting is possible, the world’s population is expected to reach somewhere around 11.2 billion people. Today it’s 7.3 billion.
The bulk of this growth is expected to happen first in Africa, and then in Asia. By 2100, Africa’s share of the global population is expected to grow to 39% and Asia’s share is expected to decline to 44%.
If you’ve been following population trends, most of this shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. The meaningful population growth happening in the world today is happening in the developing world.
That’s why architects, such as Rem Koolhaas, have been studying cities like Lagos (Nigeria) since the late 1990s and early 2000s. Below is a photo from a book/research project that I love called Mutations (2000). I pulled it from my bookshelf this morning.
It’s interesting to think about what all of this will mean for the global economy and for global governance.
The United States is about to be alone when it comes to advanced economies with a globally competitive population. Europe is shrinking, which leads me to believe that a strong EU is likely important. And we now have lots of megalopolises with big populations, but with very low income levels.
