Every profession develops its own dialect, a set of ritual utterances by which its initiates recognize one another and reassure themselves that their labor is meaningful. In architecture, this dialect has achieved an almost ecclesiastical purity. We call it archispeak.

The purpose of archispeak is not communication, but elevation. To engage in archispeak is to ascend from the vulgar world of description into the rarefied air of interpretation. In common language, we might say, “the door is open.” In archispeak, we say, “the threshold articulates a condition of permeability.” The meaning is the same, but the latter ensures that no one but an architect will ever interrupt you again.

Begin With Obliquity

The first rule of archispeak: Never arrive directly at a point that you could otherwise circle for several paragraphs. Architecture, after all, is about procession; why should speech about it be any different? A statement like “the building has windows” is too abrupt, too final. Instead, approach the matter as one might approach a museum addition in a historic district, with reverent hesitation.

Try something like this: “The façade negotiates transparency through a disciplined puncturing of the envelope.” The sentence now breathes with intention. The window, humble servant of daylight and views, becomes an ontological event.

Replace the Concrete With the Conceptual

In the vernacular world, one describes what a thing is. In archispeak, one describes what a thing signifies. Floors are no longer surfaces, but horizontal datum planes of occupation. Roofs are atmospheric interfaces. A stair is not climbed; it choreographs vertical desire.

These abstractions have a moral function. By dislodging objects from their utility, we rescue them from the tyranny of use. The chair ceases to be a mere device for sitting and becomes a tectonic negotiation between gravity and repose. It may still hold a body, but now it also holds meaning.

Conflate the Physical and the Philosophical

A reliable hallmark of the seasoned archispeaker is the seamless conflation of the material and metaphysical realms. Stone and spirit, steel and society—these must never be kept apart. The wall, for instance, is simultaneously load-bearing and ideologically performative. The plaza is both a site of public congregation and a field condition of democratic potential.

The uninitiated may find this slippery. They will ask whether one can truly claim that a curtain wall “interrogates its own transparency.” You must not hesitate. Hesitation betrays doubt, and doubt belongs to engineers.

Revere the Void

Remember: What you omit is as important as what you design. So, too, in speech. Silence, absence, void—all are noble subjects for elaboration. You might remark that “the project emerges from an engagement with absence,” or that “void becomes form through the choreography of light.” We call this “strategic ambiguity.” When the critic asks what, precisely, was absent, you may answer, “Presence.”

Employ the Passive Voice as an Instrument of Authority

Nothing in architecture is ever done by anyone. Instead, it is achieved, manifested, articulated, realized. A wall is never built; it is generated through a dialogue between forces. The client does not request changes; programmatic realignments are introduced. Through such syntax, culpability dissolves. Buildings fail, but intentions evolve.

Historicize Everything

True archispeak is never in the present tense. Every gesture must be contextualized within a lineage, even if that lineage is invented on the spot. A beam detail may recall “the phenomenological ambitions of Pallasmaa,” while a lobby layout might “extend the civic project inaugurated by Alberti.” To mention history is to borrow its authority. To cite a Finnish phenomenologist is to ensure no one asks what the beam actually looks like.

Use Theory as a Seasoning, Not an Entree

There is an old studio maxim: “A little Derrida goes a long way.” The same applies to Foucault, Heidegger, and Deleuze, whose names must appear sparingly but decisively, like Himalayan pink salt crystals on dark chocolate. Overuse suggests insecurity. The trick is to imply theoretical depth without risking quotation. “The project interrogates typology” is sufficient. There is no need to specify how or why. Interrogation is its own reward.

Celebrate the Ordinary by Rendering It Unrecognizable

Archispeak flourishes when the banal masquerades as revelation. A skylight is a calibrated aperture mediating the dialogue between interior luminosity and celestial flux. A bench is a linear social condenser fostering episodic congregation. Even the fire exit—that humblest of egresses—becomes an orchestrated release from enclosure. The goal is to make the reader believe that architecture itself is a kind of metaphysics performed in concrete and code compliance.

Speak With the Gravity of a Manifesto

Every utterance must sound like a contribution to civilization. The tone is declarative, the cadence liturgical. “The project seeks to re-ground the human in an age of digital abstraction.” No one will know what this means, but everyone will nod gravely. Gravitas is half the discipline.

Remember: Meaning Is Optional, Resonance Is Mandatory

At its highest level, archispeak ceases to convey information and instead generates atmosphere. The words hover like light through a scrim: suggestive, diffused, unverifiable. Listeners may not understand you, but they will sense that understanding has occurred somewhere nearby. And that, ultimately, is the point.

Toward a Truly Unintelligible Practice

To speak archispeak is to practice architecture in air. It is to construct not buildings, but sentences that lean dramatically against the weight of their own abstraction. The true archispeaker knows that clarity is a structural risk. Opacity, by contrast, never fails inspection.

Therefore, speak boldly. Let your concepts cantilever without support. Let your words float like panels unanchored to gravity. In the end, remember the credo whispered through studio corridors since Vitruvius first put stylus to wax: If they understood you the first time, you didn’t design it deeply enough.

Featured illustration by Jeremy Baudy. More work from Sean Joyner can be found here.