According to Adolf Loos, yes: In Ornament and Crime he argues that “If someone who is tattooed dies in freedom, then he does so a few years before he would have committed murder.”

We’re inclined to think that Loos was wrong, plus a little insane. But our question about the floorplan-detail-section variety of tattoo remains. We tried to make sense of the age old debate after the jump.

This issue was re-ignited at Architizer HQ today by a New York Times Blog post on the Abstract Impressionist work of tattoo artist Amanda Wachob, who posits that tattoos, which are meant to be personal and unique, are often anything but: “So much tattoo imagery has been repeated over and over again, I was interested in trying to find ways to evolve it.  To play with color theory and see if shapes and forms could actually communicate something more than say a panther.”

Anyways, she identifies our problem with the idea of getting, say, a Barcelona chair tattooed on you. It’s a little bit the same as wearing a shirt with CAD hatches on it: architecture as personality trait.

Let’s take a look at some of them:

The Spineless: You decided one of the two most well-known, generic mid-century chairs was the best representation of your personality. [via, by Nick Baxter]

The Functional: Actually a pretty legit reason to get a tattoo.  [via Dominic Wilcox]

The Urban Planner: As long as you don’t mind being seen as a huge dork, this is cool. via.

The Well-Curated: Everyone expects a Le Corbusier tattoo, but no one expects a Chandigarh tattoo. [via]

The Obvious: I’m not sure if it’s just the picture but the idea of getting a FLW tattoo is actually sort of hilarious. I’d hang with this girl. [via]

by Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

posted in Debate

tagged Debate, tattoos

more articles by Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan