Bill Clinton is the 42nd president of the United States of America, a revered saxophone player, and has a reported net-worth over $55 million. But, like anyone else, he, too, has unfulfilled dreams. According his keynote address at May's American Institute of Architects conference, Bill Clinton has nursed architectural ambitions. His exact words were, "If I had another life to live, I'd be an architect, especially in this age of climate change." And he's not on the only one. Here are five other celebrities who wish they were architects.
Of course Brad Pitt, our National Heartthrob, wants to be an architect. Pitt, who studied journalism at the University of Missouri, isn't going to let something as ephemeral as age or experience stop him. Pitt can be found buying bespoke chairs from Johnson's Trading Gallery, interning for Frank Gehry, and designing houses after Hurricane Katrina. In Pitt's words, "I'm really into architecture, structure and design. Give me anything and I'll design it. I'm a bit nutty with it."
Kanye West's infatuation with architecture doesn't need an introduction: He cited a $110,00 Le Corbusier lamp as the inspiration for his album "Yeezus," doled out words of wisdom to Harvard's Graduate School of Design, power couple'd with Rem Koolhaas on a 2012 pavilion for the Cannes Film Festival, and once rapped that he just wants to "design hotels and nail it."
Alfred Matthew Yankovic—aka Weird Al—was high school valedictorian and an architecture student at San Luis Obispo's California Polytechnic State University before he became a professional dad-joke generator.
Before Jimmy Stewart became America's kindly father figure, he was struggling to finish architectural studies at Princeton University. Despite the fact that his airport designs garnered him a full scholarship, his career came to a screeching halt with the Great Depression.
Infamous Talking Heads crooner David Byrne briefly studied Bauhaus theory at the Rhode Island School of Design before he was reportedly asked to leave. At RISD, he met fellow band mates Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, who is pictured above lounging under a drafting sketch.
Ice Cube's résumé boasts founding NWA, starring in a string of (disappointing) made-for-television movies, and, of course, accruing a degree in architectural drafting. So what are his thoughts on architecture? "In a world full of McMansions, where the structure takes up all the land, the Eameses made structure and nature one. This is going green 1949-style, bitch."
∙ Kanye West Further Explains His $110,000 Le Corbusier Lamp [Curbed]
∙ Watch Ice Cube Tour the Eames House, Drop High Praise [Curbed]
∙ Architecture: Still the Sexiest Fake Job Around [Curbed]