The Future of the Past – Housing in Blade Runner

Abstract

Architecture, in addition to the role of setting in the film industry, can also be an element of discussion, interpretation, and generalisation. Many works have already been developed from this perspective. In this context, the dystopian universe presented in the science fiction movie Blade Runner (1982, directed by Ridley Scott) and its sequel – Blade Runner 2049 (2017, directed by Denis Villeneuve), deserve mention. The films have a time interval of 30 years in relation to the fictional chronology of the original movie and 35 years elapsed in conventional chronology. It is precisely these temporal windows that motivate us to observe and investigate the endurance, transformations, and relationships in the domestic space, starting from the representations of the internal environments of the protagonists’ apartments in both films. The goals focus on being able to observe the spatial and functional variations of dwellings between the different time frames proposed by the films in order to understand how they represent the relationship between space and technology (in a broad sense) within the domestic domain. The methodology is based mainly on comparing the protagonists’ apartments presented in each movie (case studies), observing spatiality, domestic functions, type, uses, etc. (through the development of a redraw of the floor plans of both apartments and quantitative and qualitative analyses). We chose to explore fictitious architectural narratives, “made” to house androids/replicants, to investigate the relationship between technology and domesticity in contemporary times.