MODERN MOVEMENT: on some issues in the contemporaneity of architecture and image types

Abstract

A concept of movement was deeply embedded in the culture of the twentieth century, and no more so than in architecture where it was variously considered a condition or an aim of modern being. To a large extent the model for architecture was cinema, a technology that brought life to the still image Both the spatio-visual properties of cinema and its popularity seemed 10 make it the partner to architecture. While building technology1 means that buildings today have more capacity for movement than ever before, the converse seems to be the casein image technology At present blockbuster cinema and new forms digital animated images are eroding the distinction between still and moving images, and with that ‘movement’ as a telos for culture. By comparing old concepts of the picturesque movement effect with emerging image technologies such as virtual reality' ibis paper will suggest that some of the inventions that seem most contemporary return us to questions that lie at the origins of modernity.