Date of Submission
Spring 5-7-2023
Degree Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Architecture
Department
Architecture
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Jeffrey Collins
Abstract
Humor in architecture is not at the forefront of architect’s minds, this comes from architects need to be deemed serious. This way of thinking is what has backed architects up into a corner banal and stagnant architecture. Architecture is the art of context, everything in architecture is referential. Humor is foundationally the exact same way, the incongruity theory makes humor possible by putting a concept into context with things and finding contradictions in the process, thus developing a joke. Each of these arts, humor and architecture, are that of context and when architecture is delivered like humor, it points out contradictions in what we know of as architecture, these contradictions can develop into commentaries on our built environment. When you put a piece of architecture into context with another the commonalities between the two present themselves and when looked at through a humorous lens, it can begin to create a narrative. This narrative can inform what is humorous commentary. There are two lines of thought in architecture. One is compression architecture, where concepts and styles are iterated on. The other is expansion architecture, that which goes to change the course of architecture, that is where humor is most powerful, to point out problems in context to change for the better. This is what this thesis does, it aims to fight the powers of the status quo on their home turf.
Included in
American Art and Architecture Commons, Architectural History and Criticism Commons, Book and Paper Commons, Graphic Design Commons, Illustration Commons, Interior Architecture Commons, Modern Art and Architecture Commons, Other Architecture Commons, Other History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons, Theory and Criticism Commons