Mockitecture's Grand Promotional Event!!!

I was browsing around an abandoned building and discovered a post modernism gem: 

a 1994 Michael Graves calendar!!! 


The first 12 people to comment on this blog post will receive an authentic, full color page of the historic calendar along with a special gift from N O R T O N. Just one way we would like to thank all of you in the eWorld for reading and sharing your opinions about the wonderful world of mockitecture.

If you would like to receive via post mail a 10" x 14" tribute to Michael Graves, along with a gift from the Mockitecture WebLog Team, comment on this post with an email address where N O R T O N can contact you. This is a limited edition, free offer from us to you...the first 12 responders will recieve this genuine piece of history!!!

A few images to wet your whistle:

Political Mockitecture

More local political news has recently invaded the strange world of mockitecture (deeply sorry to all of our non-Ohio readers - but this will make you glad you don't live here, as if you actually need a reason to not want to live in the American Midwest). Desperately attempting to come up with a word for political mockitecture, but only getting the super-lame "mockilitics." Hopefully our intrepid readers can help with this.

So what's the big news!? Cincinnati's City Council members are getting in trouble for tweeting during city council meetings! Hah, that's right. It's like that time in fourth grade when you were passing secret notes around in the back of english class! A creative journalist came up with this catchy opening line to the article: "A fleet of tweets has Cincinnati City Council member Leslie Ghiz catching heat." What's even better is the end of the article: City Council won't address a call to ban tweeting during their meetings until after their summer vacation. What a joke of a city.

Reminds me of @Mockitecture's recent use of the phrase "sneak peek tweet." Oh...I totally forgot I was blogging, not tweeting. Sounds like social media is getting the best of us all. Twitter has officially trumped Tamagotchi as that hot new trend that everyone publicly hates (but secretly LOVES).

Non-Candidate for Mayor! Local Mockitect Invades the Political Arena

Hats off to non-candidate for mayor, Jason Haap, whose dropping out of the mayor's race saved Cincinnati, OH over $400k (with now two instead of three candidates for mayor, the city will not have to conduct an early and expensive mayoral primary).

In a move that seems fit for Urban Prankster, Haap presented the city with a large fake check for the money he saved them! ... oh, and by the way...he's running for the school board instead (all you mockitect-leaning voters).

Perhaps the city should build a Haap Memorial with the $$$ it saved? It's really the best way to thank him.

News Flash: NORTON Enters Tiger Naming Contest!

I, N O R T O N, hereby submit to the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, my proposal for the naming of their baby tiger cub, to be lovingly christened Norton.

Please support the cause and suggest Cincinnati's new tiger cub be named Norton!!!

Thought of the Week by N O R T O N

Have you ever studied the shapes of animal crackers. They are actually VERY flawed. Perhaps a call to customer service will fix this?:

News Flash: Beauty=Boring, Ugly=Interesting!

An interesting discussion over on CityKin about beauty in architecture: Rem Koolhaas gets double-teamed by Spiegel Online and CityKin after what I consider to be a light-hearted and witty conversation. His designs are a bit scary at times, but who can't love someone for saying, "Isn't it remarkable? Talk about beauty and you get boring answers, but talk about ugliness and things get interesting." (p.s. reminds me of Bob's Learning From Las Vegas discussion of Heroic and Original, or Ugly and Ordinary, p. 91 AND Is boring architecture interesting? p. 93).

Above all, CityKin's take on the interview is a relatively accurate perspective on today's public perception of architecture: pissed off and unimpressed. Next on the agenda for us unemployed architects? (1) Apparently don't talk s#*% about today's boring urban centers being caused by suburban"weekend warriors", and (2) celebrate beauty in architecture. As a last resort, N O R T O N will be designing an infill project for the city - something of a hybrid between a new urbanist McMansion and a neo-classical monumental civic building. Perhaps then I will be popular...or at least I will have achieved beauty in architecture! I can't wait.

Big Day

(image via)
Every once in a while I google the name of this blog to see what comes up. It really is fascinating. Today, however, was a milestone. For the first time since the invention of the word "Mockitecture," (which really doesn't even make sense), Google no longer asks "did you mean rockitecture?" Ahhh!

Thought of the Week by N O R T O N

Controversial Cartoon Books

After a recent trip to Frisch's, a local cafe-of-sorts, for an all-you-can-eat breakfast on borrowed money (long story), I became captivated by the children's coloring book placemat my friend and I were given. It featured, of all things, dinosaurs with one of the city's architectural landmarks, Union Terminal, in the background!

WOW, I thought...kids of all ages are being treated to a fantastic meal AND are learning about the city's architectural heritage all in one happy event. THIS is what will put the profession of architecture back on the map!!! After some quick research back at the office, I discovered this children's cartoon has some controversial company.

Most notably, FEMA - the United State's disaster management organization - released an infamous cartoon coloring book, titled "A Scary Thing Happened" to the eWorld after 9/11 featuring burning buildings and the twin towers under attack by commercial airlines. Soccer moms nationwide were pissed, and rightfully so! If you have a free two minutes & eight seconds, check out the enjoyable YouTube video below.

Already inspired, I stumbled across more equally frightening coloring book imagery - this time religious-based. Scenes of friendly dinosaurs accompanied by bible verses from the book of Genesis had me trembling.

I came to a couple of key conclusions. The first being, children's coloring books are a creative source of propaganda that ALL governments, religious institutions, etc. should be aware of and exploit to their full advantage. The second being I will NEVER let my kids near crayons and coloring books...EVER.

In response to all of these controversial coloring books, and in the spirit of Contemporary Space's (CS13) recent "Greetings From Cincinnati" opening, I decided to make a coloring book of my own, after all, why not put on a clinic for all of Cincinnati's spoiled little brats? The following pages celebrate everything from the Queen City's colonization of Native American tribes, to our overly-industrialized landscape. CS13 and others doing a fantastic job at cleaning up Cincinnati's image after media attacks year after year were not too pleased with my work. I hope you are repulsed and offended by the following as well.

LARGE format here

Mockitecture.com's Pending Patents

In the spirit of Jacques Carelman's series of catalogues (Catalog of Fantastic Things, 1971; Catalog of Extraordinary Objects, 1971; A catalog of Unfindable Objects, 1984; The Catalogue of Fantastic Inventions, 1984), we are releasing never before seen initial/early phase sketches of products with patents pending. A rare glimpse into the creative genius from the Mockitecture School of Thought: