Judge — July 30, 1921 — page 19: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a political cartoon satirizing architectural ambition and professional disappointment. The drawing shows an elaborate, fantastical building with multiple towers, ornate details, and whimsical elements—appearing deliberately over-designed and impractical. The caption's joke is that this monstrosity represents how a building "looks to an architect who didn't get the contract"—meaning the architect, bitter about losing the job, imagines the completed project as absurdly flawed and overblown. It's satirizing professional rivalry and wounded ego in architectural circles. The figure running past in the foreground, carrying what appears to be a hat, likely represents either the winning architect fleeing or someone reacting to the disaster. The cartoon critiques architects' tendency to blame competitors for poor designs when they themselves weren't selected.