School of Architecture – Submission
Registration Number
100127579 Module Number & Module Title Title
ARC 6989-Reflections on Architectural Design Tutor
Carolyn Butterworth Samuel Vardy
Degree Course MA in Architectural Architectural Design (MAad) Essay Title
(A 2000 words essay on the topic of) Film and Architecture Date Due (end of)4 May 2011
Visual Images: Film and Architecture Introduction: The art that is closest to cinema is architecture. René Clair Cinema-Kinema-Greek word-connotes both motion and emotion. From the panoramic views of the streetscapes, views of the historic cities to the gigantic towers and building to the three dimensional representation of the cities, architecture plays an important part in the cinema. Through the medium of the moving images, one can experience the future or the historic. These experiences sometimes become incredibly realistic that it takes one into another world. Architecture is also a visual medium as film and both are the practices of space. Film is modern form of visual maps or cartography. The scope of this essay is to define the practice of visual media from the early times (maps) to the more modern version (films) and the relation of the moving images to delineate the architecture involved. It will look into the futuristic films and Peter Greenaway’s opus.
Moving Images & Visual Sites: Memories are (moving) images; this cultural function of recollection has been absorbed by motion pictures. Giuliana Bruno
1.1 Map of tenderness: Carte du pays de Tendre
In 1654, Madeline de Scudery published a map; Carte du pays de Tendre (1.1), to accompany her novel. This map illustrates a varied terrain comprised of sea, rocks, trees, a number of people, a few towns, and a couple of bridges. This map of tenderness, the cartographic model & itinerary, presents the journeys in relation
with the emotions felt in the particular place mapped on it. As this emotional cartography relates the emotion with the places, the moving images could help in developing a relation with the visual sites. The congregation of history with the history of representation is a particular vital part of cultural investigation. This medium of representation changes as the time travel. It developed its way from maps to photographs (image) and further from photographs to films (moving images). These moving images can be rendered in relation to its bond to architecture and the history of representation of the cityscape/streetscape. It is this media that helps one to virtually inhabit a space which in reality is not possible. The earlier cinematic forms bring into play the mobility to portray the architecture. These forms defined the cityscape and streetscape as something additional and something diverse from being the mere objects of the films. The display of mobility can be seen in the panorama of the city in history. In the early 20’s, the city was the focus of a number of films. It was these films that fashioned the essence of the cine city in imperative ways. Some early examples of these films include Metropolis (1.2), (Fritz Lang, 1926) and The Man with the Movie Camera (1.3), (Dziga Vertov, 1929). The former, a tale of struggle between two classes, relies profoundly on rich set designs (1.4) for its impact. Metropolis is an artistic representation of the city (1.5): crowded, busy, yet beautiful and the architecture portrayed has many forms (1.6, 1.7) and influences including art deco, modernism and gothic expressionism. The film provides scenes of cityscape (1.8) from a number of different angles. It depicts a remarkable traffic system (1.9) inspired by William Robins on Leigh’s Visionary City (1908), (1.10) and Sant Elia’s Citta Nuava ( 1913-14), (1.11). The suspended streets and a number of traffic ways running along and underneath the buildings is an illustration of the same.
(Left)
1.2 Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926)
(Right) 1.3 The Man with the Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
1.4 Set designs, Metropolis
1.6 Tower of Babel, Metropolis
1.5 Brueghel-tower-of -babel, Metropolis
1.7 Visual of a futuristic building, Metropolis
Central skyscraper, home of Elite
1.8 Cityscape and the tower, Metropolis
1.9 Suspended streets, (night scene), Metropolis
1.10 William Robinson Leigh’s Visionary City
1.11
Sant Elia’s Citta Nuova’s station for aero planes and trains.
Taking into account the progress in the portrayal of space, the medium of film delineates itself as an architectural practice. It acts as an agent in building the cityscapes. The early exemplar panorama films ameliorate the building of cityscapes and aided in rendering the architectural space according to its rich history of visual representation. In The Man with the Movie Camera, the architecture resides in the movement of the people captured by the moving camera (1.12). It was the camera that captures everything but the essence of the movie was in the mere movement of the camera that becomes the vehicle: a means of transport. It is this camera that can produce still images and freeze them in the time and space and could bring them into life in the near future elucidating the factual real architecture hidden behind the foregrounds (1.13).
1.12 The Man with the Movie Camera
1.13 Stills from the Movie: The Man with the Movie Camera
A Complex Relationship: A painter or a film maker may be obsessively concerned with architecture; or they may not care for it at all.
Originating from the cartographic images, there has been a lot of progression in the visual transformation of the urban city. This progress has eventually altered the way of inhabiting the virtual architectural space. Architecture and urbanism are complex creative acts of bridging difference and revealing identity, ultimately fulfilled through inhabitation (Michael Chapman & Michael Ostwald, 2009). This transformation could also be result of the individual
navigation of the city. Every single individual is connected to the city according to his/her own emotions and feelings. The equivalent was experienced in the map of tenderness. It is this way one can curate their own individual experiences of the city. These distinctive familiarities, affected by desires and emotions, could then be elapsed in the form of text, maps and even in the form of (moving) images. These forms refer to the movement of Surrealism. Surrealism is best known as the art of the unconscious mind and the members comprehend the city as the gateway to the unconscious. Surrealist art practices frame fragments, flatten, expose and eroticise aspects of unconscious readings of the city (Michael Chapman & Michael Ostwald, 2009). The medium that facilitated them to relate to the city were best stated as film, photography and collage. It was these mediums that helped documenting not only the city and the spaces within but also the incidents and thus transpiring the progression of happenings that altered them along with time. According to me, after looking into the surrealist art forms (1.14), the main object was not in designing the architectural space but to get acquaint with it and inhabit the virtual space created by the notion of thoughts. Accordingly, the architecture is amalgamated into the surrealist practice through a medium of films and not because of the spatial experience.
1.14 SALVADOR DALI'S DREAM OF VENUS FUNHOUSE The exterior (left) & the interior (right), as seen at the 1939 World's Fair in New York
After looking into different aspects of practice of films in different fields, it is apparent that there is a way in this particular visual medium which connects sense to place. Also in the field of architecture certain emotions are sensed in the way an individual inhabit a certain space in a building. For film to achieve its real identity it needs space and it is this way architecture (film sets, backgrounds, cityscapes etc.) gives life to film and in turn film recaptures the essence of the architecture and seals in the time space conserving it forever to be restored by the future. An individual is placed still and view the moving images. On the other hand, an individual moves from one place to another around the stationary building. It is this unification of seeing in relation to the movement along a certain path that connects the two practices together. This relationship between the two gives life to each other. The movement and vision are interconnected in terms of rational understanding of place. For example, the architectural path
(1.15) in Parc de Villette, Paris designed by the architect Bernard Tschumi was called a Cinematic Promenade. It is conceived as the montage of the spectatorial movements as felt and seen along the said path. This path connecting the follies of the park in Paris is pictured as a film.
1.15 Bernard Tschumi Architects, plan for “Cinematic Promenade”, Parc de La Vellette, Paris, 1982-97.
Peter Greenaway & Architecture: Every film needs to have a location, a sense of place, whether found or invented, and when found, then visually re-invented. Peter Greenaway
1.16 Screenshots: The Prospero’s Books
Along with the passage of time, architecture has become as a medium for the film directors to send certain messages to the spectators. Sometimes it is the obsessions with the field of architecture, the film directors endeavour to chase their dreams to become live on screen. Peter Greenaway is one of those film directors. He as an
artist trained as a painter was obsessed by architecture and the evidence of which can be seen from the various work he created. Greenaway’s endeavours s tretched the notion of film beyond the conventional territory. Looking at his work, one may see several numbers of movable screens. For example, the use of numerous floating screens in the film- Prospero’s Books (1.16). These movable screens define the different roles he played, as an artist and curator, apart from being a filmmaker. With his creative sight Greenaway managed to develop a connection between the current practices (film) and the historic precedents (art and architecture).
1.17 The Movie: The Belly of an Architect.
In 1986, Greenaway created the movie The Belly of an Architect (1.17). The movie develops on the plot of an architect Kracklite struggling with the matters of the with the exertion going into the exhibition in Rome on Etienne-Louis Boullée (1728-99). This struggle between
American belly along the architect the two
connects the body to built space. The film generates an idea of relationship and difference. Both the American man and his wife reach Rome and develop anxiety about the belly. One develops cancer and the other conceives life. This enlightens the relationship and variation of the terms dome and domus in reference to the passion of Boullée, as an architect, for the dome. The belly of the architect Kracklite also becomes a sculptural object in the film. The film captures the depiction of an architect to epitomize an architectural position. Greenaway ’s films use certain camera movements to capture the progressing scenes enabling the viewers to engage with the film and at certain points feel so close to the actual representation of the city. The scenography become so palpable and thus defines the intensity of his opus. Another movie named The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989), (1.18) is an another example of Greenaway’s motion picture. The movie develops with love, intimacy, hatred, murder and death. The rest is revolved around the emotions. The act of mourning on the edge of the dead body justifies that grieving is the architecture of swallowing. In the end, the body of the dead is prepared into a meal and set on the table to be eaten. In relation to the film The Belly of an Architect, both the movies revolve
around the metabolic system of the body (ruled by taste). The emotion of the film in 1989 is housed in the book depository (1.19), (lover’s house) and the kitchen setting, (1.20). The end marks the escalation of cannibalism (1.21) involving the integration of painterly, architectural, and dressed figures. Greenaway's films present rigid systems of order and classification, only to disrupt them through the chaos of ruptured narrative.
1.18 The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover
1.19 The book depository
1.20 The Kitchen: the green room
1.21 The “meal” in the final scene in the movie
Conclusion: It is evident that the maps visualises our experiences of certain landscapes and places and records it for further use or for the viewers. Similarly, films provide one with a digital media which familiarizes with the certain dimensions of space. It assists as a cartographic function by recording and storing the imagined periods of times which sometimes become more realistic than the actual cities itself. The photographic image encloses architecture for it hides within the realistic architecture in the background or the foreground. These pictures transform into an environment and the assembly generates space. The film can be perceived as the
documentation of the imaging and the touring of the city. A film implicitly characterizes architectural tourism. Film generates a notion of sense of place and an inhabited space. This space can take the form of a realistic building or an entirely virtual setting. The films that create the setting relating to the latter are more stooped towards the futuristic architecture. This architecture is always shown in the form of huge gigantic buildings and flying traffic system. Apart from the representation of the architecture on the two dimensional screen today is the three dimensional screening that is emitting its effect on the present day architecture. Both the practices at some level are fulfilling each other’s purposes and its hopeful that the inspiration connecting
both together will keep providing further innovative advancements in future.
References: Books Edited by Sarah Chaplin and Alexandra Stara. 2009. Curating Architecture And The City. New York : Routledge. pg. 3,39,41,42. Bruno, Giuliana. 2002. Atlas of Emotions: journeys in art, architecture and film / Giuliana Bruno. - New York; London: Verso. Pg. 2,6-58,264-369. Mistry, Anil. 2001. Film, Architecture and Society: the use of film and the cinematic medium, 2001. Film and Architecture: Busan cinema complex international invited competition. Seoul: BIACFOC, 2006. Shonfield, Katherine. 2000. Walls have feelings: Architecture, film and the city. - London: Routledge. Architecture and film. - London: Academy Group, 1994
Thesis/Papers: Jenkins, Peter. 2001. Film and Architecture: a tortured relationship. MA. University of Sheffield. Macfarlane, Jane. 1988. Catalogue of films and television programmes on architecture, town planning... - Oxford: Oxford Polytechnic, School of Planning.
Web pages: Lived space between architecture and cinema Lux: collection of films Film architecture and the transnational imagination Royal College of Art | Architectural Cinematography The Bartlett: Film and Architecture Twelve Categories to study film and architecture relationship Thesis | Architecture & Film Prospero's books
Video Links: Metropolis: The Movie The Cinematic Orchestra: The Man with the Movie Camera The Man with the Movie Camera: The Movie The Book of Mythologies: Prospero's Books The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover - Part one The Belly of an Architect: The Movie The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover: The Movie
