Blobitecture, blobism and blobismus are terms for a movement in architecture in which buildings have an organic, amoeba-shaped building form. Though the term blob architecture was already in vogue in the mid-1990s, the word blobitecture first appeared in print in 2002, in William Safire's "On Language" column in the New York Times Magazine. Though intended in the Safire article to have a derogatory meaning, the word stuck and is often used to describe buildings with curved and rounded shapes.
Future Systems' blobitecture design for the 2003 Selfridges Building department store was intended to evoke the female silhouette and a famous "chainmail" dress designed by Paco Rabanne in the 1960s.
The Montreal Biosphère by Buckminster Fuller, 1967
The Edificio Copan by Oscar Niemeyer, 1957
The Flintstone House in northern California
Greg Lynn is an American architect, founder and owner of the Greg Lynn FORM office, a Full Professor at the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and a professor at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. He is CEO and co-founder of the Boston based robotics company Piaggio Fast Forward. He won a Golden Lion at the 2008 Venice Biennale of Architecture. In 2010 Lynn was named a fellow by United States Artists. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
Greg Lynn
