I Am Confounded By Architecture

I have posted before about how useless architecture is. I mean, there's no application of the study of architecture, unless you deal directly with buildings, and I for one am going to live in the natural light and sleep under the stars when I grow up - that is to say, I have renounced buildings altogether, and will live in the wilderness, eating honey and wild locust (which, by the way, are not indigenous to the Ozarks. I'll have to import them).

The architecture class I attend here does not usually give out grades, but has resigned itself to two major tests, a midterm and a final. Halfway through my study abroad journey, I find myself taking a midterm.

There were two parts: a series of slides, of which I was asked to define, and a essay concerning the Roman consciousness as seen through their architectural elements. The slides went off without incident, and, in retrospect, I may have gotten some right. However, when I got to the essay, everything went downhill.

As I started blowing smoke and paraphrasing texts I had recently read about the essay topic, all the slides of the past hour came to revisit me, and not in a helpful, ready to be applied way, but in a form I had never expected. In my mind, all I could envision were these buildings growing legs and morphing into enormous robots, battling through time over the city of Rome. Bramante's Tempietto became a sort of spider, powered by the dark arts and the blood of St. Peter, firing rockets every which way. The Roman Forum assembled into some sort of rock monster, throwing javelins made of the leftover columns of temples at its foes. The Vatican itself spawned innumerable beings made of marble and pieces of sculpture, firing lasers every which way.

Transformers: Buildings In Disguise.

It was about the time that I conquered and vanquished all these robots of antiquity that time was announced to be up, and tests were announced to be overdue.

Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye.

I quickly reread my paper: I managed to keep all references to the weighty Battle of the Architectural Ages out of my essay, but I did mention the comedian Zero Mostel, the Duke University football team, and the phrase 'bad news bears.' I actually said 'bad news bears' twice.

Does any of my experience with the architectural test make sense? It doesn't to me, either, I assure you.