![]() I’ve often wondered why many of the established architects in Seattle haven’t experimented more with their beards. And if you go too small, is it because you are really into detail and precision? Or is it because you are indecisive?) (On a side note, how does a designer determine how big his soul patch should be? Does the bigger the patch mean the bigger the soul? Or is it a compensation thing? You don’t want to go too big because it may appear like an oversized truck, gold chain or crotch rocket. It should really be called the muzak patch. However, as with my goatee, I believe I was the one who introduced the Seattle design community to this peculiar swatch of facial hair now, half the architecture community over 40 has one. What was I thinking?! Again, all of this was within the confines of the approval of my style-sheepish architect peers.Īs the twenty-first century arrived, I remember how proud I was to enter it with a soul patch, but again, Brad Pitt already had one, so it was still pretty safe. (Rick Zieve might have beaten me, but he’s stuck in a beard rut.) In this decade, I also made the worst hair decision of my life and grew a fairly large and unmanageable mullet. ![]() I’m pretty sure I was the first architect in Seattle to grow the ever-so-popular-in-our- profession goatee beard in the early ’90s, but this was only after I saw Brad Pitt with one. With the technology we had in those days, it was harder than it looked. I also took many cues from Don Johnson and Miami Vice, continually experimenting with maintaining that perfect three-day growth.everyday. I eventually cut it off and mailed it to my sister. In the ’80s, I went a bit wild and grew a rat tail but often kept it hidden under my pastel-colored shirt collar for fear I was just way too un-yuppie. But as much as I might have wanted to, I just couldn’t do anything as far-out as Ziggy Stardust. Yeah, in the ’70s I had the same mustache, plus long hair, sideburns and oversized plastic glasses. I don’t want to go too far out on a limb. I have a restless face, so I am constantly changing up what gets shaved and what stays and 2. Over my career, I feel like I have manifested my profession’s ambivalent relationship to hairstyles in my own facial constructs. I grew a mustache! A great, big, long one that slides down past the sides of my mouth. So this winter, I decided to shake things up, do the very un-architectural thing and jump into a style trend while it was still in its weird and edgy stage. We think we’re so cool wearing blue jeans with suit jackets, but software designers set this trend in the ’90s. ![]() We may be one step ahead of the general culture in taste, but it’s not in our nature to be setting the pace. In some ways, we are all trapped in our psychological cardigan sweaters and pleated khaki Dockers. Deep down we’ve all wanted to be artists, musicians and urban activists, but we didn’t have the emotional cajones. One thing I have realized along the way is that architects are inherently prudish. And as long and hard as I have labored at it, I always seem to be a half-step short of this urban ideal. Along the way, I’ve written about looking cool, acting cool, talking cool, living cool, cool houses, cool kids with cool toys, cool music and even cool glasses. He drives a vintage “Cattylac.” He has always been my hero of “the cool.”īy now, most of our faithful Side Yard followers are well aware of my protracted quest for this sense of hip legitimacy as an architect. As a guitarist, he not only plays the hell out of his axe, he looks and acts and dresses and eats and talks like a jazz cat. This article first appeared in ARCADE volume 31 issue #2, May 2013.
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