Fig: 1 – Playtime (1967) shows the rise and fear of modern/industrial architecture through its narrative and the set.

Architecture movies

Human lives crave to listen to stories, witness drama and over centuries these experiences have made us create various mediums for its delivery. Movies are one such medium of human tales, and the built set/environment gives it depth. 

In real life architecture and built environments have shaped our minds by shifting perceptions, conditions, and memories. We are the creators and also the actors of these spaces, cities and houses we live in. Movies exactly fit these macro and microenvironments within minutes. They show the magic of function and influence of architecture on people through intelligent scripts, motion, montage, focal range, camera mobility and other technicalities. 

Architecture and cinema are distant arts, yet near relatives. Seeing how an impressive amount of research and selection of atmosphere is gone into production design and narratives, the disciplines aren’t studied together.

The interconnection of world-building within these disciplines for reel stories and real stories might lead to better understandings and transformations in both fields.

 

Fig: 2 – Blade Runner 2049 visuals of the future city (Credits-Warner bro. pictures)

Questions to be addressed

In your research, you should particularly explore the relationship between movies and architecture, how they connect and transform singularly and with each other.   The views are

expected to be analytical, instead of a purely utopian/dystopian approach across the subject. 

• In what ways have set designs/constructed/real environments have been portrayed and evolved through trends and technologies in movies? 

• How have architectural styles/movements/trends helped to define/provide the narratives of a movie? 

• Have movies in any way influenced/inspired architects in terms of perception and world-building? If yes, how? If not, why?  

• In what ways do the current movies transcend dimensions of real built environments?  

• How can these fields be studied together? And what kind of changes and transformations will the research and study bring in reel and the real world?

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Note: For the competition deliverables, please check the 'Guidelines' section from the left sidebar.