Archinect - News

Win a copy of “The Architecture of Cinematic Spaces”, a new book by Mehruss Jon Ahi and Armen Karaoghlanian!

2020-08-18T11:15:00-04:00

Craving more inspiring books about architectural film studies? Eager to learn more about the ever-intriguing relationship between architecture and film? Don't miss out on “The Architecture of Cinematic Spaces”, the latest volume by Mehruss Jon Ahi and Armen Karaoghlanian, the editors of online journal Interiors. Thanks to the book's publisher Intellect Books, Archinect is giving away five copies of the book to our readers!

This 96-page book takes an academic, graphic approach to film studies, combining critical essays with original architectural floor plan drawings detailing the production design of iconic 20th and 21st century films like “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, “Rope”, “Le mépris”, “Playtime”, “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Home Alone”, “Panic Room”, “A Single Man”, “Her”, and “Columbus”. Each chapter features an original floor plan of a key scene in each film.

Whether for scholarly research or just for fun, this page-turner inspires us to pay closer attention to the stories the...

Prop and Property: The House in American Film

2017-12-19T18:50:00-05:00

Cinema heightens the ambivalent but powerful pleasure we take in looking at property. The private property of the house is already a spectacle, of course, as the house is a medium for making visible the wealth of its owners and inhabitants. In a movie theater, this spectacular function is multiplied.

A history of the house in American cinema might well begin with Gone with the Wind, a film that is fascinated with the loss, acquisition, and consolidation of private property; and To Kill a Mockingbird, a putatively antiracist film whose production history is actually an archive of racist urban development. The houses in these pictures tell stories about property that the films do not mention, but cannot cease from showing.

SCI-Arc Celebrates a School Year’s Culmination and Welcomes Another

2017-10-03T12:37:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).

Since its founding in 1972 as an independent school of architecture, SCI-Arc has developed a series of idiosyncrasies that have anecdotally permeated the broader architecture community. Prominent among these is hosting its cap and gown-less Graduation in the middle of September-- literally an hour after its last review of the academic year and a week after the first pin ups of the new school year. This means that September is the most dynamic time of the year at SCI-Arc as it concurrently welcomes in a new class of undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students and bids farewell to its latest generation of architects eager and ready to imagine and shape the future.

SCI-Arc’s 2017 graduation ceremony was held on Sunday, September 10 and featured a commencement address by architect Marion Weiss, cofounder of WEISS/MANFREDI and B.Arch Graduate Deborah Garcia ’17.

A celebration of student ach...

When art architects life: city from Bollywood film "Bahubali: The Beginning" may become actual location in India

2017-01-10T14:03:00-05:00

While the architecture in real cities has sometimes become the jumping off point for imaginary structures in cinema (think: the Los Angeles of Blade Runner) the reverse seems to be happening in India, where a filmmaker is being asked to design real structures based on the imagined buildings that appeared in his film. According to Quartz.com:

"Andhra Pradesh’s chief minister Chandrababu Naidu wants Rajamouli, the Telugu filmmaker behind the blockbuster Bahubali: The Beginning, to contribute his design skills to the architecture of the main government and administrative complex of Amaravati—the proposed capital of Naidu’s newly truncated state."

Here's a trailer for the film, which showcases the imagined city of Mahishmati:

Geoff Manaugh's "A Burglar's Guide to the City" headed to TV

2016-10-04T19:31:00-04:00

CBS has given a put pilot commitment to "A Burglar's Guide to the City," a television series based off the book by BLDGBLOG founder Geoff Manaugh, who interviewed former bank robbers like Joe Loya to explore the role of architecture in crime, and the corresponding shifts in privacy in both the physical and virtual realms. An article by Deadline describes the thrust of the series thusly:

"Written by Grellong, A Burglar’s Guide to the City centers on a team of modern-day Robin Hoods, led by a brilliant architect with a troubled past. They use their unique skills to gain access to any stronghold in order to steal from rich criminals and give to those who have been wronged by a corrupt system."

Listen to our conversation with Geoff about the book, recorded earlier this year:

For more on the intersection between architecture and Hollywood:

Documentary seeks funding to finish tour of UK-engineered social utopias

2016-09-01T13:03:00-04:00

What are dreams made of? More importantly, how are these dreams executed, and how do we live in the corresponding gap between vision and reality? For the residents of the U.K. towns Basildon and Essex, who dwell in post-World War II "New Towns" designed to be social utopias, their struggles to thrive in a globalized reality are being chronicled in the documentary "New Town Utopias." The filmmakers, who have shot over 100 hours of footage, are currently seeking funding via Kickstarter to help them complete the film.

While the film centers around the creative community, it also investigates the larger historical questions of place and belonging. As the Kickstarter description notes, "It is a meditation on British social history that asks the question: do people make the place… or does a place make the people?"

For more on innovative architectural documentaries:

20 excellent films that feature cities as principal characters

2016-08-30T14:58:00-04:00

What would "Lost in Translation" be without Tokyo, or "In Bruges" without, well, Bruges? This engrossing Taste of Cinema piece selects 20 films released from the 1930s up to the cinematic present in which the city and its surrounds play a vital role in the narrative. The piece then delves into the beauty, power, and ambiance of that particular locale as it relates to each film's plot. Unsurprisingly, Jim Jarmusch's work makes a few appearances, as does the original 1997 version of "Insomnia," which qualifies as pretty much the most noir movie ever shot entirely in daylight.

Screenshot from "Insomnia."

Screenshot from "Night on Earth."

Screenshot from "Mystery Train."

As a kind of thesis statement, the piece explains that:

"The films listed rely on the narrative space and its geographical and sociological specifications. The plots of these films are formed by numerous references to the spatial and temporal phase in which the story is taking place."

For more on the intersection of cinema an...

Stahl House documentary plagued by extortion, suicide, and lawsuits

2016-05-19T16:57:00-04:00

The Los Angeles Business Journal reports in this week's issue that the filmmaker, Steven Slomkowski, sought to get out of the project after the suicide of Mark Stahl, one of three siblings who control the property, also renowned in architecture lore as Case Study Home #22. Slomkowski sued in 2014, alleging that the surviving siblings, Bruce and Shari Stahl, got cold feet over depictions of Mark and their late father, Buck. The Stahls countersued...

When it's not involved in documentary-driven legal feuds, the iconic Stahl House frequently serves as a backdrop for a variety of fictional films, including Atom Egoyan's "Where The Truth Lies," and "Galaxy Quest:"

For more on the intersection between architecture and cinema:

Bêka & Lemoine's cinematic canon acquired by MoMA

2016-04-20T14:08:00-04:00

The way a building is envisioned to interact with people versus the way it actually does can be dramatically different, which is why the 16 films of Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine are both aesthetically stunning and humanistically delightful. MoMA has acquired the pair's entire collection of work, from their first film, "Koolhaas Houselife" to their latest, ""The ∞ happiness."

Beka & Lemoine has filmed the work of a variety of well-known architects, from Bjarke Ingels to Frank Gehry to Renzo Piano. Here a few stills from "Living Architectures" and "Spiriti":

And here's the trailer for "The ∞ happiness":

Wim Wenders discusses the role of architecture and landscape in his films

2015-10-08T14:06:00-04:00

I slowly became more and more of a storyteller and less and less of a painter until I embraced film-making as the only profession that really included everything I liked. It was photography and architecture, music and writing and acting—everything I liked together into one package that was called “film-making”.

In an interview with The Economist, film director Wim Wenders speaks about the relationship of landscape and architecture in his work, and how focusing on a scene absent of anyone often amplifies the stories of everyone.

"I try to make places tell their stories about us," he says. Indeed: from "Paris, Texas" to "Wings of Desire" to "Pina," Wenders' filmmaking agilely pairs emotional and physical terrain.

Gentrification through a cinematic lens

2015-07-29T16:54:00-04:00

Real Estate Fiction, a two-part short film series that compiles clips from movies that deal with issues of gentrification and land-grabbing, isn't the magnum opus of Los Angeles Plays Itself, but it's infused with the same analysis-as-entertainment spirit. Part one of the 20-minute short features clips from Batteries Not Included, Boyz'n'The Hood, Do The Right Thing, Le mani sulla citta, and numerous other films from around the world, interspersed with brief critical dialogue at the beginning of each chapter heading.

Divided by chapters with titles including "Conspiracy Over the Urban Scene," the film artfully investigates the tensions between city dwellers and the pressures of (usually greedy) developers and speculators. It's entertaining primarily because it explores realities that so often make for exceptionally dry academic reading. The concise commentary touches on the complexities of urban development, speculation, and repurposing without offering the depth and nuance of a ful...

Winners of the London Cinema Challenge re-imagine the movie venue

2013-12-19T19:31:00-05:00

Have a seat and grab some popcorn, the results are out for Combo Competitions' London Cinema Challenge. Limited to only their imaginations, designers from all disciplines created their own movie-viewing spaces set on Central London's Newman Street. Entrants also had to include a unique twist in their submission.

Three winners and four honorable mentions were selected:

First prize - Cine'stival by Etienne Fabre and Jean-Emmanuel David

Second prize - Symbiotic Venue by Nada Alqallaf and Jaime Sevilla

Third prize - Peep(le) Show by Shuping Liu and Jackie Krasnokutskaya

Click the thumbnails below to see the Honorable Mentions.

Winners of the Long Island Cinema Center Competition

2011-05-09T14:23:06-04:00

Three winners and four Honorable Mentions have been revealed for the suckerPUNCH-curated Long Island Cinema Center competition in Queens, New York. The international design ideas competition challenged entrants to create a large scale center to celebrate cinema and rescue the moviegoing experience from fading into obsolescence.