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'80s music videos that influenced your relationship to architecture...

...or any other pop culture/music/film reference really. But since the 80s are back, stylistically, that's where I'm starting.

The video for Wrapped Around Your Finger by The Police 

The minimal, near-monochromatic color palette, the disconnect between movement and sound speed, the structural framework of organic materials, and of course the climax of destruction.

I have a good - much more contemporary - Chuck Klosterman reference I'll put up shortly, too.

 
Jul 26, 14 2:48 pm
toasteroven

how about exuberance and bold patterns?

 

although - this one is close - 1990... 

Jul 26, 14 3:12 pm  · 
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x-jla

Film, the goonies, Indiana jones, starwars, big trouble in little china, the last dragon, etc... these movies always conveyed a strong sense of atmosphere to me.  The interconnectivity of places/set and adventure/plot really prompted me to start exploring spaces in a very innocent playful way.  I remember going into the storm water pipes in NY and the abandoned subway tunnels and pretending I was Indiana jones....lol.  This eventually became more academic but my love of space/place, and the idea that space/place can affect mood, all started with play which was very much inspired by these films.    

Jul 26, 14 3:21 pm  · 
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x-jla

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YgSVTdAtNYE

love it. 

Jul 26, 14 4:06 pm  · 
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not a video exactly but, carpetbagging on jla-x's last, the talking heads' 'true stories' includes some good critiques of architecture - both explicit and incidental. and it's sort of a bunch of music videos strung together in a narrative way, anyway. 

Jul 26, 14 4:24 pm  · 
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wim wenders' movies - wings of desire, alice in the cities, kings of the road, american friend - all affected my architectural education in a big way. 

Jul 26, 14 4:26 pm  · 
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See, toast, I think my love of the Police video was in direct opposition to that crazy flashy seizure-inducing color.

I also loved Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer, because someone had to *make* that animation.  I love material things.  Wikipedia says he had to lay under a glass table for 16 hours while they made/filmed it.

Jul 26, 14 5:34 pm  · 
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Crystal Varnish that Dynasty sequence is awesome...do how did it affect you, do you design glassy glitzy skyscrapers for savings and loans in Texas?!

Jul 26, 14 5:41 pm  · 
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Free Fallin' is a pretty serious tribute to '80s SoCal mall architecture.  Which at one time seemed important.

Jul 26, 14 7:49 pm  · 
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vado retro

wings of desire for me also as someone said i looked like one of the angels. earlier diva. now it is southern gothic and hatch show prints.

Jul 26, 14 9:04 pm  · 
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toasteroven

sorry - another 90s video - but here's how neighborhood presentations usually go.

Jul 26, 14 10:04 pm  · 
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“””1991”

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Blade Runner or Metropolis. Noobs

Jul 27, 14 12:55 pm  · 
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Didn't learn much frim either, rick.

Though any movie based on Philip K Dick fascinates me, glimpses of the Hollyhock or the Bradley weren't architectural inspiration, exactly. The structure of Total Recall gave me more to chew on.

Has anyone ever seen Cronenberg's 'Stereo'? Good contemplation of people in groups and the dynamics of their containment; hard to watch.
Jul 27, 14 9:30 pm  · 
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curtkram

early 90s

http://youtu.be/gziNBIWDJ4M

or, early 70s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf0RrF6KsI8

to be honest, i could kind of skip the 80s.  too much reaganomics and k-cars.

this is from 1956.  i stumbled across it accidentally looking for the previous one.  it's off-topic, but since i hadn't seen it before i figured some of you may have missed it too.

http://youtu.be/jbZliXx8kIQ

don't you sometimes wish you could back to a time where everything was black and white instead of shades of beige?

Jul 27, 14 11:12 pm  · 
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curtkram

gotham city then

and then

and now

Jul 27, 14 11:23 pm  · 
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I've always felt like a bit of a failure, architecturally, as I fell asleep during Wings of Desire and never could understand the fascination with it.

Steven, I don't think I've seen Stereo but the tools in Dead Ringers were certainly influential.  And since Cronenberg came up I'll put in a plug for his son's recent movie, Antiviral, which is visually gorgeous and socio-culturally horrifying.  I loved it, husband hated it.

Jul 28, 14 10:46 am  · 
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awaiting_deletion

somewhere at the bottom I mention The Kinks - Come Dancing

The Taco Escape: Shortly after Interview

Aug 22, 14 8:50 pm  · 
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The Kinks social commentary has always been brilliant.  I just listened to Schoolboys in Disgrace this week.  But mother of Ray Davies' child Chrissie Hynde has always been the kick-ass-take-names attitude touchstone for me when I'm about to walk into a room full of contractors.

Aug 22, 14 10:19 pm  · 
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Young Architect

Ummmm.... 

We built this city on rock and roll!!!!

Which is what im doing everyday. 

Aug 22, 14 11:08 pm  · 
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zonker

U2 - Boy and October 

Aug 23, 14 7:51 pm  · 
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sameolddoctor

I think my architecture is affected by this video, also my dressing style

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVxcwe7EcaY

Aug 23, 14 9:32 pm  · 
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The Young Adultsand Talking Heads of course. The Young Adults opened for them at RISD. 

Long before music videos and MTV.

Aug 23, 14 11:37 pm  · 
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zonker

Talking Heads - Fear of Music + Kinks Live

Aug 24, 14 5:50 pm  · 
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awaiting_deletion

Paradise City - Guns 'n' Roses

I imagined green suburban pastures and could smell candy in synch wit USA network cabbage patch kids.  That's what America felt like to me as an American kid raised by Christian Missionaries in West Germany.  Americans turned civil servants of US military in West Germany, I think, but still involved heavily with the Gemeinde Philadelphia (German non-evangelical church).  We visited my parents families in Colorado and Missouri every so often and that's what America felt like to me.  Everyone always on vacation - Germans work.

back in West Germany - Frank (Indian Jew) had brought the Guns 'n' Roses track to the 6th grade JFK school trip to Rehau, DE.  I had a crush on an American girl (military family) whose name difference then from my now wife is minor, both Jennifers, both last names in Irish starting with an O.

Frank and my boy Ben (half Brooklyn Jew and Romanian), whose Bar Mitzvah in Berlin got him an East German Trabant car... how many Bar Mitzvah's were going on in Berlin in the 90's...both these kids later, my mother only told me much later because she knew i would of thought it was very cool....both Ben and Frank made counterfeit money and spent it on Ku'Furstendam (former West Berlin downtown), buying from a shop a girl worked my family knew, she was the daughter of another missionary couple from England and Holland, we had done trips to France with...

I was proud of Frank and Ben....  and the green suburbs of candy and USA network cabbage patch kids mixed with counterfeit money that's Guns 'n' Roses - Paradise city to me...the America I met once.

Aug 24, 14 6:13 pm  · 
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Nice recollection, Chris. I enjoyed that.

Aug 24, 14 9:14 pm  · 
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awaiting_deletion

Donna, I did my best to find an exhibit I saw at the Whitney in NYC, I thought it was same time as Diller Scofidio's work when they had that drill making holes in the wall (2003?)....it was an exhibit of photos of the American Suburban yard - this was Paradise City

 this is the best I could do, and remember it smells sweet and happy USA network cartoons in synch with it....the 80's rocking to Axel Rose of G 'n' R

 

Aug 24, 14 11:36 pm  · 
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chatter of clouds

And from green to blue (not incidentally, this is about American suburbia, green lawns, blue skies, happy children faces, rape, death and torn body parts).

Aug 25, 14 1:11 am  · 
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x-jla

-

Aug 25, 14 1:38 pm  · 
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x-jla

-

Aug 25, 14 1:39 pm  · 
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x-jla

image wouldn't post...

Aug 25, 14 1:40 pm  · 
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toasteroven

typical day at work (warning - very NSFW)

 

making it your intention-ooh yeah
Live those dreams
Scheme those schemes
Got to hit me
Hit me
Hit me with those laser beams

Aug 25, 14 7:32 pm  · 
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