how has that been established if no one has imagined or even can imagine it :)

you should check out the writing of Giuliano Bruno, a professor of film at Harvard in the Visual Studies department. She writes a lot on the relationship between architecture and film.

Also, Manhattan Transcripts is another good reference, and other books by Tschumi as well.

i feel like i am missing some other important references for you but i'm drawing a blank at the moment.

search the discussions, every couple of months this topic comes up. I liked Stan Allen's book Practice - Architecture, Technique and Representation. It deals with many more topics, but also film and montage.

1. Take Shower
2. Dress
3. Go To College Library
4. Ask Librarian to show you where the Avery Art Index is located.
5. Search index for articles written about relationship between film and architecture.
6. Write down the call numbers of the magazines/journals that have writings about the subject that you are researching.
7. Walk to the bound periodical section of the library and search for the volumes that are required.
8. Remove the bound periodicals from stacks (be careful they may be heavy.)
9. Carry the bound periodicals to a table.
10. Place them on the table and, beginning with the first volume that you have selected, locate and read the pieces that were cited in the Avery Art Index.
11. Repeat when researching a subject is required.

Personally, I've never bought this argument. Film and architecture have absolutely nothing to do with one another.

I think I'll go to the library now and look up articles that prove my theory ;-)

I liked Juhani Pallasmaa, The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema. I would also read something about Alfred Hitchcock, he had great sence of space and atmosphere.

I'm kind of with LB on this one. I guess if some architecture is all about a progression through space, and that progression has no deviations, it could be something like film, but personally I think it's narrow. In my mind, architecture likely is no closer to film than any other art medium.

"I am kino-eye, I am mechanical eye. I, a machine, show you the world as only I can see it."
Excerpt from Kino Eye manifesto, 10 April 1923 – Dziga Vertov

just make a film using the kuleshov effect. only juxtapose the images of the crying/smiling/nonreacting people with buildings by famous architects. you will receive praise and a high grade.

I don't know about film and architecture.. but I do think directors and architects are similar...

“The director is simply the audience. So the terrible burden of the director is to take the place of that yawning vacuum, to be the audience and to select from what happens during the day which movement shall be a disaster and which a gala night. His job is to preside over accidents.” Orson Welles

I say study people who were interested in and tried careers in both fields. I think Michelangelo Antonioni studied architecture before he became a filmaker. He deals a lot with light and scale issues.

This is still pretty vague, what you got so far?

OE,
Your post in the other discussion about 'narrative' is something which i stand by. but i also believe in comparing different fields of art, since they all share a common dais somewhere in their process of translating the meaning to the viewer/observer/listener/visitor.

About this thread, well, I do have acquired certain knowledge about how there have been architects who have worked towards bringing film and architecture together, namely, Tschumi, Koolhas, Nouvel, Pallasmaa (plz fill in if u have any other names) .

What Tschumi says, from what i have gathered, is the experience of moving through a building/a place is essentially is made up by the quasi-sequential arrangement of spaces, wherein the events take place.
E.g. Parc de la Villette, Paris.

Now this is still philosophical in nature, so i am searching for the pragmatic means to handle this issue. Since Montage is also a system/method of juxtaposing sequences and since it also plays a major major role in translating the meaning to the viewer, i feel, they both the fields share something similar.

For Koolhas, Nouvel, all i know is that they have applied their knowledge to their work but to understand that process i need to read some text focusing on the process of converting the theory into practicality. It is said that Koolhas has exemplified his notions of Montage in architecture through Seattle Public Library, whereas Nouvel has done so through Arab Institute in Paris.

Pallasmaa seems have also written an essay and book. The essay doesnt really speak about montage and architecture but it speaks a lot about film and architecture having similar elements of Time and Space.

Now, even directors like Eisenstein have commented that architecture and film are related, through Montage. i have this essay by Auguste Choisy giving examples of how Acropolis can be broken down into sequences.

Link - http://cosmopista.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/eisenstein_montage-and-architecture.pdf

Hmm, well, i have noted down Authors such as Giuliana Bruno, Pallasmaa and Tschumi for his architecture and disjunction, i dont have access to Manhattan Transcripts, which is suppose to have better explanations.

Your call...

Well, to assume first you are doing a design project and not a paper (is this correct?) It sounds like your research is on track, Id suggest you start just experimenting? Right? with like actual films and physical studies?

I think theres probably two different angles to think about this;


The mechanics of collection and composition; I really like your idea to integrate different fields of art, and I think theres a lot to think about using techniques from those fields in the design process. Theres a lot of crossover with ideas like linearity and sequencing, but maybe more interesting on the practical level might be to develop a physical methodology of translating composition elements, like scene cuts, fields of collected material, the meaning and mechanics of camera angles and movements and how they effect the viewer. Down the road I could also see some compelling experiments in the juxtaposition of images, the disconnection of audio and visual experience, framing and content, etc.


Projection and virtual experience; The clearest difference between film and architecture is who holds the lens. Theres a precision in film, in that the director has total control over the frame, that we trade for an encompassing, tactile environment. Im not certain how one intellectually reconciles that difference, the difference between being present in an environment and suspending disbelief to engage in a virtual space, but its certainly something you'll have to think about, and could actually be the most fertile soil for really compelling discoveries.


What is your site? program?

OE, this is going to be a research paper, a dissertation, kind of an essay exploring the so-called connections.

what i plan to do is provide a convincing argument to prove my stand, by giving a methodology to look at buildings/designs in a 'sequential manner', same as a director looks at his films in a definite sequence to transfer the meaning on the other side of the screen - the audience. the sequence may be a linear/non-linear one.

for the methodology, prime importance lies in the examples that i cite, and analyze them and create a 'guideline-like assistance' which could be further utilized to start one's own design process.

i like your idea about translating composition elements of film to architecture - montage (dealing with scene cuts and juxtaposition) is just one of the many potential elements.

so the question of site or program becomes futile.

to work on the methodology i need to read theories from both the sides, film & architecture. and understand their role in the process of design. thus, making something practical out of the theoretical.

i need different outlooks for this, from different intellectuals and maybe more examples/options to work with....

getting the picture?

@ Vado Retro,

My college doesn't have Avery Art Index :P you got any other suggestions?

many film-makers have worked hard to subvert the linearity of film. The experience of architecture is only linear in a narrow set of cases. Perhaps the subversion of film is its most architectural aspect?

i think you're aiming too big with your essay: a whole comprehensive methodology for spatial analysis might be a bit beyond the level of your research at this stage. Be a bit narrower, perhaps? It depends on the assignment I suppose.

AGFA8X,
i understand the essay content seems a little far-fetched,
can you suggest a narrower approach?

i guess my ultimate goal is to get a pragmatic methodology for design process with montage at the center stage.

so what to keep in mind while designing, key areas to concentrate upon, must do's/musn't do's

"Since Montage is also a system/method of juxtaposing sequences and since it also plays a major major role in translating the meaning to the viewer, i feel, they both the fields share something similar."

Did you research the Kuleshov effect as I suggested? This is what the Kuleshov effect is.

i am reading it right now, but can you elaborate on -
"only juxtapose the images of the crying/smiling/nonreacting people with buildings by famous architects"

The hour's approaching to give it your best
And you've got to reach your prime
That's when you need to put yourself to the test
And show us the passage of time
We're gonna need a montage
Ooh, it takes a montage
Show a lot of things happening at once
Remind everyone of what's going on
In every shot, show a little improvement
To show it all would take too long
That's called a montage
Girl, we want a montage
In anything, if you want to go
From just a beginner to a pro
You need a montage
Even Rocky had a montage
Always fade out in a montage
If you fade out it seems like more time has passed in a montage...

now now, what is that????

got it, DVDA - Montage

did u have any point to make by the way??? :)

oe :The clearest difference between film and architecture is who holds the lens.

well, actually, film implies the usage of multiple layers of lens whereas architecture passes through one.

furthermore, thats merely the optical take.

furthermore, is that really the clearest difference?

I assume people were kidding when they blithely dismissed the connection between film and architecture. If montage, in one form or another, tells a story at different narrative and spatial scales with only reference to the whole while progressing you through the frames of that experience over time, then how is that different than they way that we experience architecture? We experience architecture at a number of scales, and oftentimes, architecture can introduce this change rapidly (I think a really good example of this type of this was at the new MOMA in NYC...scale change during the experience came and went, was revealed and hidden around almost every corner). architecture also has a progression of the story it tells you, the experience it gives you, as a progression flowing through the circulation of the building.

if you believe that this is too far of an abstraction that is one opinion. if you dismiss it in the vein of "I hate chocolate ice cream" and leave it at that then you aren't giving much supporting evidence.

Max my mate, welcome to the polemic!

modz, where do you go to school? this argument sounds much too familiar.

erm, i am studying in India... where are you studying?

london.

hmm, so what made u say that it sounds too familiar? have you come across the same subject somewhere?? youve got anything to contribute to the knowledge pool collected so far?

we had this very same discussion in a seminar recently. i don't really want to get into it too much, but i think that it is a serious mistake to say montage in film = montage in architecture or even urban design (like cullen claims). just because representations are similar does not mean that purpose, use, function is similar. film and architecture are worlds apart, why bother bringing them together? this has been done over and over and over again over the last 40 years. i think that in research papers, or dissertations (is this really your dissertation/degree project topic!?), you should really look INSIDE of architecture, rather than doing a comparison essay between a representative object outside of architecture and architecture at large.

vado retro - I love the pure old skool simplicity of you answer. It brought a misty tear to my eye, a reminisce for when one got off ones lazy arse and actually did the work yourself.

F**king blagging slackers don't deserve the qualifications these days, I had to work for my plagiarism and read stuff I had to actually find myself. Unbelievable now!

march3,
with all due respect mate,
i disagree with ur standpoint. not because i am not looking 'INSIDE' of architecture, but because i believe to 'ALSO' look outside architecture.

you are right that people have been flocking the same idea of film and architecture since the last 40 years.... but people have been talking about 'INSIDE' of architecture since so many centuries....

on the scale of comparison, my topic is still young and open to experimentation/discussion.

and by the way, too much inbreeding inside architecture leads to some defects, lol... film and architecture is a kind of hybrid that opens up another dimension, only for the progress of architecture, of course.

and are you telling me that Tschumi, Koolhas, Eisenmann et al. are wrong on the way they work??? i mean, i know i am still amateur with the idea, but i wouldnt want to disagree with them...rather explore it myself, and conclude.

we need to look outside the box too, explore opportunities. and i have never explored it myself, but i am intrigued by it, enthralled by it, so yea it is my dissertation project project...

now for mr. BOTS,

firstly, Ironically your statements are kind of inspirational hombre! lol. thanks for the 'quasi-valuable' time u spent behind it.

secondly, i started this thread to get different view points of different people, belonging to different places, with seemingly different backgrounds before architecture and thus their opinions become kind of valuable.

now, this is also a kind of 'finding' that u were referring to, just the medium has changed.

People here comment because they have a point to make, to voice their opinion - regarding the topic, mind you, even u have voiced ur opinion but that aint even worth a saccadic movement of the eye.

now please keep ur opinions of such nature to urself, and dont digress the original path of the discussion... i will appreciate it, not that you care, but still.

dont be uncouth. cheerios!

Vado Retro -

thanks for suggesting the Kuleshov Effect, i knew that he was the one who started the experiment, and eisenstein and vsevolod took it ahead, but never knew about the 'K.E'.

it kind of manifests the meaning that montage aims to translate. so a very good example. thanks again.

is everyone on a hiatus??? it was going good...