A Film Approach in Design

How does architecture influence our lives and behavior? How does it reflect our beliefs? Perhaps film has an answer.

Inspiration

My interest began when I was first intrigued (and puzzled), by the powerful events that occurred in the old Roman Coliseum. The strong images of animal slayers, war soldiers, slaves fighting for life for which if one should become at the mercy of the other, the crowd would vote for or against his killing with the signal of a hand. This is where many people suffered for the pleasure of others, and where heroes arose and where stories and myths were created. Nowadays, entertainment is sought effectively in similar paradigms but with the difference that happenings are no longer real. It is all created artificially behind the camera lens.

Thesis
Have the spectacle lost its meaning because of a new media? In 'About Looking', Berger suggests that "Our very sense of situation is now articulated by the camera's interventions. The omnipresence of cameras persuasively suggests that time consists of interesting events, events worth photographing."2 He adds that at the beginning of the camera age, people subjected to the camera were unaware of the purpose and the capacity of the photograph which is taken of them, and that is why old photographs were more telling than photographs now a day. Furthermore, Berger criticizes the capitalist society today of being driven by images, images that are not telling but rather created to sell more inventory, attract more customers, make political statements and so on. In order for the camera to make a concise image, it must be part of the action, the eyes of the photographer or the filmmaker, as in cinema verité. It must not, however, be there because of the action, or the action because of the camera.

The essence of space is in the activity and emotions that are evoked. What the camera does, and what the eye in itself can never do, is to fix an appearance or a sequence of appearances of the activity or event, saving them from the inevitable replacement of further appearances. The aim is to use these images or recorded fragments of time to demonstrate the design ideas of the space and initiate criticism about them, in order to make a surrealistic but tangible architecture. In order to explore the concept of design using film techniques, the project will be to design a filming school.

The basic program includes acting and movie production classes, editing suites, canteen, fitness room and most importantly dominated by an interior amphitheater that allows the finished works of students to be celebrated and shown to visitors.

The project will be implemented in a publicly accessible site. On a larger scale, an opportunity will be sought in the historical significance of the Old Port of Montreal and its potential to spontaneously ignite public events in the harbor area. The presence of several art galleries in that area allows the project to be treated as a movie gallery. Students can also benefit from reduced fees (see website) if they do major film productions that require the acceptance of the Corporation of Old Port of Montreal.

Architectural Demonstration: ichnography/orthography/scenography

Although the thesis and the architectural demonstration are presented separately, they go hand-in-hand. What makes a scene? In film-making, originating a concept and evolving a form, identifying a style which complements the psychological motivation of characters and their interactions as depicted in screen stories, are important aspects of design. The aim is to translate this knowledge into architectural demonstration in order to communicate the idea of the project.

"Here's an occupation that I never get tired of: looking. I like almost all of what I see: landscapes, characters, situations. On the one hand, it is dangerous, but on the other, it is an advantage, because it allows for a complete fusion… between reality (or unreality) and cinema."3 --Antonioni

More on the aspects between architecture and film.

Resources:
Metropolis - mpegs: work shift-6.9MB | tower of babel-7.0MB | the city-2.2MB | The City in the future, the workers hideout, the machine as a monster, the victims of the machine-5.80MB
Blade Runner- mpegs: Golden Temple-1.7MB | Other Scenes-4.54MB
L'avventura mpegs: The Ending - Characters realize what they have lost-1.48MB
Il Deserto Rosso mpegs: Metaphor between mother and architecture -4.08MB