ARCHITECTURE IN

CINEMA
Shraddha Chandan
121110113

MANIT, BHOPAL
Abstract
Since the late 1970s, architecture has fervently sought connections with other fields of art.
Inspiration for breaking through the prevailing paradigm of architecture, petrified by quasi-
modernist professional praxis, has been sought in painting and sculpture, as well as in
literature and music.(1) In architectural schools and professional practice alike, architectural
projects have been generated through an analysis of the compositional structure of Vermeer's
as well as the Cubists' paintings, the music of Bach as well as Meredith Monk, the literary
fragments of Heraclitus as well as Herman Melville's Moby Dick and James Joyce's Finnegan's
Wake.(2)
In many schools of architecture around the world, the most recent interest is cinema. Films are
studied for the purpose of discovering a more subtle and responsive architecture. Also some of
the most esteemed representatives of the architectural avant-garde of today, like Bernard
Tschumi, Rem Koolhaas, Coop Himmelbau and Jean Nouvel have admitted the significance of
cinema in the formation of their approach to architecture.(3) In its inherent
abstractness, music has historically been regarded as the art form which is closest to
architecture. Cinema is, however, even closer to architecture than music, not
solely because of its temporal and spatial structure, but fundamentally
because both architecture and cinema articulate lived space . These two art
forms create and mediate comprehensive images of life. In the same way that buildings
and cities create and preserve images of culture and a particular way of life, cinema
 AIM
This dissertation looks into the way architecture has been
used in cinema and their interaction .
The interaction between architecture and cinema will be
discussed by using the concepts such as space, time,
perception, image, imagination and virtual world in addition
to their relations with future cities and spatial designs in
these worlds. The discussion will depend on film genre
characteristics in some cases and will further discuss modern
Architecture styles with the help of motion pictures that
exemplified them.
CONTENTS
Abstract
Aim
Introduction
Using architecture in story-telling
Architecture in cinema - cinema in
architecture
The architecture of cinema
The realities of image and imagination
The mental reality of place
Virtual Of
History world
Modern Architecture Through Movies
Art Nouveau (approx. 1890 1914) + Midnight in Paris (2011)
Futurism (1909 - 1914) + The Fifth Element (1997)
Art Deco (1912-1929) + Metropolis (1927)
Fascist Architecture (approx. 1922 - 1942) + Equilibrium (2002)
Modernism (early 20th century - present day) + Playtime (1967)
Brutalism (1950s - 1970s) + Dredd (2012)
Digital/Parametric (contemporary) + Tron: Legacy (2010)
Introduction

In the late 19th century, the relationship between architecture and

cinema became effective, and the interaction between these two
visual art forms became more visible in the 1920s. The change in the
society and life style by the industrial revolution had an expanded
reflection on cinema and on the representation of the city in cinema.
As technology developed and the city became an object for mass
production; images, spaces and environments had become more
related with the communication way of arts such as cinema. The
production of worlds in cinema by using more advanced methods
became more important day by day and the design of the spaces
produced in this process became more effective. As technological
developments increasing, their impacts on the society and the
reflections on the city have being seen more apparent.

As a result architecture became a more important theme by the

improvements in cinematic techniques. Architectural spaces began
to move beyond being simple backgrounds; while creating images of
city architectural images became very important tools in
conveying the essence of a film. Film gained its presence with
architectural images. Everything from mood to plot and character
Using Architecture in Story-Telling
The only job that was ever of interest to me other than film making is architecture.
And Im very interested in the similarities or analogies between the way in which we
experience a threedimensional space that an architect has created and the way in
which an audience experiences a cinematic narrative that constructs a three
dimensional -reality from a two-dimensional mediumassembled shot by shot. I
think theres a narrative component to architecture thats kind of fascinating. (4)
Christopher Nolan (director: Inception, 2010; Interstellar, 2014).
Architecture in movies depends on the story; the visuals of the built
environment vary greatly from dystopian futures to space opera fantasies,
from post-apocalyptic decaying structures to complete virtual worlds. Some
of these use fictional building inserted in real-world context while others make use of
real buildings because of their uniqueness or their iconic status. Karl Gajdusek
(writer for Oblivion, 2013) considers the five pillars of science fiction to be: alien
contact, artificial intelligence, technological breakthroughs, space
exploration/adventure and origin stories.
Architecture in Cinema - Cinema in Architecture
The interaction of cinema and architecture - the inherent
architecture of cinematic expression, and the cinematic
essence of architectural experience - is equally many-
sided. Both are art forms brought about with the help of a
host of specialists, assistants and co-workers. Regardless
of their unavoidable nature as the products of collective
effort, both film and architecture are arts of the auteur, of
the individual artistic creator. The relations of the two art
forms could, for instance, be studied from a multitude of
viewpoints: how different directors depict a city, as Walter
Ruttman in Berlin, der Sinfonie der Grossstadt (1927) or
Fritz Lang in Metropolis (1927); how buildings or rooms are
presented, as in German Expressionist films with their Marcel L' Herbier, L' Inhumanite,1924
fantasy architecture suspended between reality and
dream; over the real architectural projects of these
architects of notable buildings. An architect who made
superb projects both as a designer of buildings and set
designer was Paul Nelson. His project Maison Suspendue
(1936-38), a house in which individual rooms are
suspended withing a steel-and-glass cage like bird nests, is
as fantastic as any of the ideas expressed through the art
form of projected illusion. Vice versa, one could speculate
The Architecture of Cinema

There are hardly any films which do not include

images of architecture. This statement holds true
regardless of whether buildings are actually
shown in the film or not, because already the
framing of an image, or the definition of scale or
illumination, implies the establishment of a
distinct place. On the other hand, establishing a place
is the fundamental task of architecture; the first task of
architecture is to mark man's place in the world. As
Martin Heidegger expresses it, we are thrown into the
world.
Through architecture we transform our experience of
outsideness and estrangement into the positive feeling
of domicile. The structuring of place, space, situation,
scale, illumination, etc, characteristic to architecture -
the framing of human existence - seeps unavoidably into
every cinematic expression. In the same way that Main city in the TRON system. It is
architecture articulates space, it also manipulates time. built on the Grid, Kevin Flynns
'Architecture is not only about domesticating space,' master creation, and the pinnacle of
writes Karsten Harries, 'it is also a deep defense against his digital frontier. It is constructed
the terror of time. The language of beauty is essentially in a hexagonal shape, with a deep
The Realities of Image and Imagination
The essence of architectural space as determined by an artist, is free of the functional
requirements, technical restrictions and limitations of the professional conventions of
architects. The architecture conceived by artists is a direct reflection of mental
images, memories and dreams; the artist creates an architecture of the mind. Yet,
even the works of architects, built in matter, obtain their psychic content and echo from the
very same existential experiences and images accumulated in the human mental constitution.
Even real architecture can affect our soul only if it can touch the datum of forgotten memories
and feelings.
Imagination is usually attached to the specific creative capacity of the artist, but the faculty of
imagination is the foundation of our very mental existence, as well as of our way of dealing
with stimuli and information. Recent research by brain physiologists and psychologists at
Harvard University shows that images take place in the same zones of the brain as visual
perceptions, and that the first are equally as real as the latter.20 No doubt, actual sensory
stimuli and sensory imaginations also in the other sensory realms are similarly close to each
other and, thus, experientially of equal value. This affinity or sameness of the external and
internal experience is, of course, self-evident for any genuine artist without the scientific proof
of psychological research. The artist has always known, that the encountered, remembered and
imagined are equal experiences in our consciousness; we may be equally moved by something
evoked by the imagined as by the actually encountered. Art creates images and emotions that
are equally true as the actual situations of life. Many of us can never mourn our personal
tragedy with the intensity we can suffer the fate of the fictitious figures of literature, theater
The Mental Reality of Place
The architecture of cinema does not possess a utilitarian or
inherent value - the characters, events and architecture interact
and designate each other. Architecture gives the cinematic episode its
ambience, and the meanings of the event are projected on architecture.
The cinematic narrative defines the boundaries of lived reality: for anyone
who has seen Andrei Tarkovsky's Nostalghia, Michelangelo's Campidoglio,
centering on the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, can hardly be
Virtual Worlds experienced without thinking of Domenico's shuddering self-immolation on
There are two types the back of
of virtual the horse.
worlds: The realities
cyberspace of material
and dream world and
and lived image
in both are fused.
of them the rules
of physics can be altered from within, usually gravity bending, folding or twisting the built
environment. A world with 4 layers of dreams within dreams was conducted for Inception (2010)
each dream had a different setting where the first three layers are rather conventional: a town, a
hotel, a fortress in the mountains (filming location was a ski resort) but with a fourth layer called
limbo almost entirely computer generated. The dream landscape is comprised of tall buildings
arranged to a grid, some decaying but most of them intact. It is meant to represent an architect's
dream city with no people a composition of prismatic towers, ordered and aligned, cold
materials such as concrete, steel, glass and tiles, square plazas with large water basins and all
the designs are modernist with a desaturated colour palette, argued by the main character's
fondness for that style . In the Matrix trilogy the virtual world is considered a cyberspace but has
elements of shared dreams similar to Inception and makes use of real-world built environments
almost without alterations. If in those movies the virtual worlds are supposed to resemble reality,
in Tron (1982) and Tron: Legacy (2010) the cyberspace is nothing like it and almost everything is
CGI; it is meant to resemble a video game. Although present day video games have realistic
graphics and physics, Tron: Legacy presents a minimalistic and hyper stylized environment where
The motion pictures that help exemplify modern architectural styles
from the turn-of-the-century Art Nouveau all the way to today's
digital designs.

Art Nouveau (approx. 1890 1914) + Midnight in Paris (2011)

Futurism (1909 - 1914) + The Fifth Element (1997)
Art Deco (1912-1929) + Metropolis (1927)
Fascist Architecture (approx. 1922 - 1942) + Equilibrium (2002)
Modernism (early 20th century - present day) + Playtime (1967)
Brutalism (1950s - 1970s) + Dredd (2012)
Digital/Parametric (contemporary) + Tron: Legacy (2010)
 Art Nouveau (approx. 1890
1914)
Midnight in Paris (2011)
Art Nouveau, or quite literally
"new art," is also known as
Jugendstil (Germany),
Secessionist (Austria), Stile
Liberty (Italy) and even Yachting
Style (in French again). You can
see it in the flowering and
curvilinear forms of the desk,
furniture, and wall decorations
above. It arose in the 1890s
throughout Europe as artists
and architects were searching
for a new style that would befit
Midnight in Paris (2011) features the flowing forms
the coming modern century
of Art Nouveau
Futurism (1909 - 1914) The Fifth
Element (1997)
Though the buildings themselves of
The Fifth Element seem to have a
uniquely eclectic style, there's no
question that the New York City of the
23rd century is a Futurist's dream
come true. The movie itself is set in
the far future and tells a classic story
of good versus evil with a healthy
dash of comedy, romance, and sci-fi
quirkiness. The opening scenes of the
movie (after a brief flashback to
1914) take place in New York, a city
which has been scaled up to titanic
proportions. Flying cars race through
the air, buzzing among the towering The dense skyscrapers and rapid (even danger
skyscrapers. Innumerable walkways transportation of the Fifth Element echoes the
connect these immense structures, urban aspirations of the Futurists
giving the sense that the city
The Fifth Element's New York City is the spitting
image of what the Futurists wanted the future to
look like. As the Art Nouveau demonstrated, the
turn of the century was an experimental time for
architecture. The Futurists (initially all Italian) were
obsessed with factories, noise, speed, violence,
and danger. These ideas embodied all the most
exciting aspects of the new machine age that they
were beginning to experience. Electricity, the
internal combustion engine, and other
advancements left the Italians convinced that the
future would be fast, industrious, and bold.

Architect Antonio Sant'Elia (1888 -

1916) also envisioned towering and
interconnected forms that a Futurist
The Fifth Element adopts New York City's eclectic society would inhabit. Photo:
architectural styles but keeps all the cacophony, TintoMeches via en.wikipedia.org
movement, and danger of a Futurist megalopolis
 Art Deco (1912-1929) Metropolis
(1927
Fritz Lang's early sci-fi masterpiece depicts a
future divided between controlling elites and a
toiling underclasssymptoms of the
industrialization that had been intensely reshaping
the social fabric of Europe over the previous
decades. The plot is of a young man who must
mediate between the factory owners and their
workers as escalating conflict between the two
groups creates chaos throughout the city. Though
Metropolis contains elements of other architectural
stylesfrom the Gothic to the FuturistLang was
heavily influenced by New York City's towering Art
Deco skyscrapers when he visited there in 1924

Metropolis (1927) depicts a dystopian future that

was heavily influenced by New York City's 1920's
Art Deco
Art Deco had nebulous beginnings in Paris during
the salons of 1912. Raymond Duchamp-Villion,
Marcel Duchamp's brother, designed a set of
Cubist interior ornaments that were displayed at
the Salon d'Autumne and the Paris Salons. This
was quite the coup, as salons were pivotal events
in the international art world. These exhibitions
represented an opportunity for artists to compete
for recognition and patronage, as well as for ideas
and styles to propagate through the artistic
community.

The Duchamp-Villion style did indeed

propagate through the hands of more established
architects such as Peter Behrens and Josef
Hoffmann. However, unlike Duchamp-Villion, these
architects were more interested in the coming
Machine Age of industrialization and industrial
design. The resulting mixed style took on a life of
its own in the hands of various designers
throughout the 1920s, characterized by angular
lines, rich surfaces, and stylized figures. It earned
 Fascist Architecture (approx.
1922 - 1942) + Equilibrium (2002)
Fascist architecture isn't easy on the eyes, and
its effect in Equilibrium is no exception. This
film stars Christian Bale as an elite enforcer in
an Orwellian state that has outlawed emotions
and demands total obedience from its citizens.
His character battles his way through a
fortress-like city deep within the ruins of a war-
torn metropolis. The film was primarily shot in
Berlin in order to make use of its decrepit East
German buildings as well as left-over Fascist
architecture from the Nazi's reign in the 30s
and 40s. This architecture is built on an
inhuman scale, features little ornament, and
designed with oppressive symmetry and
regularity Equilibrium was primarily filmed in Berlin to make
use of its old Fascist architecture.
 Modernism (early 20th century -
present day) + Playtime (1967)
Ever wanted to step into a world of
pure modernist living? Then Jacques
Tati's Playtime might be just what you
need. The movie features next to no
dialogue, instead relying on
situational humor and slapstick
comedy to portray the absurdities of
the modern world. Tati constructed a
massive set that included an airport,
offices, a trade exhibition,
apartments, a royal garden, and a
carousel of cars (all immaculately
modernist of course). The clean Playtime takes a humorous angle at a world of
minimalism of the modern European modernist design, architectural and otherwise
city belies its deep irrationalities that
Tati cleverly highlights for comedic
effect.
Brutalism (1950s - 1970s) and Dredd
(2012)
The architectural style of Brutalism has
long been associated with low-cost
construction, urban decay, and failed
social experimentation. That viewpoint
is certainly reflected in Dredd, which
follows a day in the life of a law
enforcement agent battling crime in a
dystopic society. Almost all of the movie
takes place in the Peach Trees housing
complex, a massive tower of
apartments that could be a city unto
itself. The oppressive construction is
intentionally reminiscent of
impoverished social housing executed The vast urban landscape of Mega-City One is
The Unit home to towering housing projects whose exteriors
in a Brutalist style.
d'Habitacion and interiors echo a negative perception of
was finished in Brutalist architecture
1952 and
designed by Le
Corbuiser.
Digital/Parametric (contemporary) +
Tron: Legacy (2010)
Digital/Parametric architecture
isn't so much an architectural
style as it is an architectural
technique. It's the ability to
take drawings and models,
what architects use as part of
their creative process, and
craft them in a digital model.
Tron: Legacy follows up the
original Tron, though both
movies tell the story of a
computer programmer Tron: Legacy not only features design that visually
transported to a digital world. resembles real-world parametric design, but it also
This sequel, helmed by a deals with questions of design philosophy.
director with architectural
training, discusses questions of
design and perfection in Tron's
endlessly shapeable electronic The MAXXI: Museum of XXI Century Arts designed
universe. The aesthetic of Tron: by Zaha Hadid Architects and completed in 2009
Conclusion

The value of a great film is not in the images projected in front of our
eyes, but in the images and feelings that the film entices from our soul.
Fritz Lang comments on the invisible content of his film M for Murder (1931): 'There
is no violence in my film M, or when there is, it occurs behind the scenes, as it
were. Let's take an example. You will remember the sequence where a little girl is
murdered. All you see is a ball rolling and then stopping. Then a balloon flying off
and getting caught in some telephone wires (...) The violence is in your mind.'(18)
Catherine Breillat makes a similar comment on the power of invisible imagery: 'The
work of a director is a way of hypnotizing: the viewer has to be made to believe to
see even that which he is not seeing. A woman complained of the excessively
exaggerated bloodiness of the final scene of my film Parfait amour, ending in a
murder of passion. But that blood was only in her own head. It is not shown on the
screen at all,' Breillat recalls.(19)
A powerful experience of architecture likewise, turns our attention
outside itself. The artistic value of great architecture is not in its material
existence but the images and emotions that it evokes in the observer. A
great building makes us experience gravity, time and - ultimately - ourselves, in a
strengthened and meaningful way. A positive architectural experience is basically a
strengthened experience of self which places one convincingly and comfortingly
into the continuum of culture, enables one to understand the past and believe in