I recently stumbled upon this LA Times article: Stunt Climbers Use Buildings For Their Own Causes , by Christopher Hawthorne. It’s an older piece regarding the double ascent of the NY Times building in 2008.

At one point he mentions buildering.net:

There is, not surprisingly, a whole series of websites devoted to the obscure hobby, including buildering.net, on which by Thursday night the message boards were buzzing with news of Robert’s latest conquest.

I was more interested in the site’s tag line, running in horizontal script at the top of my browser. “Buildering.net,” it read. “Misinterpreting architecture worldwide.”

Like Robert himself, the site may be French, the tag line no more than a charming malapropism. But the phrase is a fascinating one, raising a range of questions about how people react to a piece of architecture once it’s completed, and how using a building in a way that the architect or the client never intended can actually animate it in the public imagination.

A charming malapropism? Did all that well-formed English on buildering.net lead you to believe I’m French, or did you just make a pathetic attempt at claiming a brilliant idea as your own? Here’s a bit of French for you Chris: fuck off.