Through An Architect Eyes: a reaserch blog on The Phantom Tollbooth

            Your can not, CAN NOT go through life with out seeing a building. It just doesn’t work that way. You are born in one, near one, in sight of one… and thus, you have seen a building. So what? It’s a building. Just something that’s supported on a foundation that’s precisely measured to be supportive, and beams of wood and cement and metal that intertwine into a web that makes the frame for the basic outline of some shape that will able to house a living thing. It’s just a building.

            Norton Juster, the author of the Phantom Tollbooth, was an architect. He spent time on blueprints mapping out every angle, every dimension, and every last bit. It must have taken forever to put together just a basic plan of action to start building. Do you think anyone ever really stopped and though about that? No. Even your house is that complicated and yet so VERY taken for granted.     

            With the knowledge and experience of an architect, Norton Juster perceived a lot this way, and proves it in his book. The world he builds, The Land Beyond, is actually a deconstructed version of our society that we live in today. Norton must of thought about that, when coming up with the idea for the book.

            He’s saying “HEY! Don’t take the world for granted! Look at it! See what’s really there!” just like a building. He wants us too look past the paint job, and wallpaper, and flooring, and pictures, and rugs, and everything we use to cover up the plain and simple foundation, and look at what is really there.

             With all honesty, I think that wooden beams that are angled and balanced perfectly enough to support a building, is more beautiful then some floral wallpaper. What do you think makes the world the world it is? The foundation or the details?

            On page 155, one of the characters says “no one realizes how much trouble we go though to make them”. I see a little secret author’s intrusion. I only found out the Norton Juster was an Architect, towards the end of the book. So I wonder what else I’ve missed involving that. So I guess… yes, it is just a building