The modern art of filmmaking: Architecture on-screen at MoMA

Abstract

Abstract The 1930s saw the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York become the first museum to include film within its exhibitions of architecture. Although other institutions had offered film screenings for visitors, what set MoMA apart was the manner in which the productions were presented, shown as exhibits within its galleries and displayed alongside photographic reproductions, architectural models and drawings as part of the curatorial narrative. Commissioned in an ad hoc fashion at times and produced to limited budgets, the films brought an emerging form of architectural representation to MoMA at a time when the cultural value of the cinema was still being debated. Under the leadership of Museum Director Alfred J. Barr Jr., the commissioning, curating and collecting of such works became part of a wider movement at MoMA to label the moving image as an art form in its own right.