Los Angeles – FXFOWLE Architects celebrated the release of their new monograph last Thursday night with "Urban Narratives", a panel discussion on, perhaps surprisingly, storytelling. Currently, the trope of describing design disciplines, and many forms of marketing and new media, in terms of "narratives" and "stories" has become quite pronounced (sometimes derisively so). But as set pieces on the world stage, architecture holds great sway in determining whatever "urban narratives" arise. To the panelists, composed of professors and practitioners in both film and architecture, architecture's kindred narrative art is naturally film, as they are both time-based media, and visually oriented. The discussion turned to how architectural design can be used as elements in city storytelling, and in turn, how film can tell that story with architecture.

Moderated by University of Virginia architecture professor (and former dean) Kim Tanzer, the panel was populated by Edward Dimendberg (professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Irvine), Dan Kaplan (Senior Partner at FXFOWLE), Amy Murphy (Assoc. Professor of Architecture at USC), and Aric Lasher (principal and director of design at HBRA Architects). Each panelists introduced themselves and their perspective on the overlap between film and architecture, expanding Tanzer's premise that "when stories are layered, that's the stories as understood through buildings or films; they become condensed and repeated and refined, they become our identities. When they're shared, they become our histories and communities."

So if a city crafts its narrative through architecture, film can use architecture to reinforce its given narrative. Aric Lasher described the power that filmic representations of architecture can have over a mass audience, referring to his work designing sets for such films as "Pearl Harbor" and "Minority Report", as films "produce these documents that are incredibly affecting. One of the unintended consequences is they can really impress upon the memory of large numbers of people, either inspiring images or warning, but can distort the perception of history". Any media, in its attempt to portray reality, can end up changing it when realized effectively, creating a feedback loop between fictional and historical narratives as portrayed in film. Amy Murphy's research compounded this, referencing the constant feedback loop between architectural realities and shifting cultural narratives.

FXFOWLE senior partner Dan Kaplan approached the issue by paraphrasing Indian architect Charles Correa: "climate is at the source of cultural differentiation", a perspective that informed his firm's recent project in Istanbul. The differentiating climate in Los Angeles then, according to Edward Dimendberg, is not just sunshine and palm trees, but its cars – the city's personality only becomes visible when experienced from a car, making it a tricky city to represent on film, as represented in clips from films "Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles" and "Body Shop".

The panel was a casual reminder of how influential film's representation of urbanism can be on reality – training us to find narratives in urban spaces, and use architecture to craft that narrative.