Architecture and Cinema

Abstract

The interdisciplinary dialogue between architecture and film studies has a long history. Early film theorists were fascinated by the affinities between architecture and cinema as spatial arts, especially their shared capacity to organize space and time. Modernist architects were equally captivated by the possibilities of cinema to reproduce movement, the use of editing to create multiple perspectives, and the screen as a component of design. Such early connections established the basis of academic inquiry into architecture and cinema, which has expanded rapidly in film and media studies since the 1990s as part of the spatial turn in the humanities. Architects and architectural historians have also focused on cinema and screen media across theory and practice, especially in relation to digital technology. Architecture and the moving image is now a varied and heterogenous area of research with several distinct but overlapping clusters of interest; partly due to its multidisciplinary history, there is no unified theoretical or methodological approach. From a text-oriented perspective, scholars have analyzed and theorized the filmic representation of architectural space and cinema’s engagement with a range of styles and movements. Such work frequently addresses the narrative and ideological properties of specific types of cinematic space, such as the house and the skyscraper, especially in relation to questions of gender, race, and class. Within this representational approach, scholars have examined directors whose engagement with architectural motifs is central to their authorial style, and illuminated the architectural conventions and possibilities of genres such as science fiction, crime, and horror. Historical research into sets and art direction has also provided an important means for understanding the concrete ways that architectural design has influenced production, especially in the studio. A significant branch of the literature examines the architectural design of motion picture theaters as part of the social and technological history of exhibition. Beyond cinema, questions of consumption and viewership are central to the engagement between architecture and television studies, which has often emphasized television’s privileged place in domestic space. The digital turn has created new areas of convergence between architecture and the moving image, from the apps used by architects and visual effects studios to the proliferation of screens in public space. Contemporary research into architecture and the moving image therefore addresses both “media as architecture” and “architecture as media.” The term “architecture” itself has also expanded far beyond its traditional scope—a move this bibliography acknowledges by including work on areas such as planning and infrastructure. Though there is some necessary overlap with scholarship on the cinematic city and production design, researchers are encouraged to consult the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Cinema and Media Studies articles on The City in Film and Art, Set, and Production Design.