Picture it: a brooding detective walks down a shadowy street, the neon lights of the city glinting off the wet pavement. But have you ever stopped to think about the buildings that surround him? Since the 1920s, architecture has played a vital role in film. But what about the other way around? How have movies influenced the world of architecture? I recently stumbled upon an article from a bygone era - way back in 1993 - that offers some intriguing insights into this very topic. Let's take a trip down memory lane and delve into this vintage piece of film and architecture history!

Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3171214

Cineplastics

The relationship between architecture and film has been evident since the early days of cinema. Many modernist filmmakers recognized the architectonic properties of cinema and the potential of film to construct its own architecture. Likewise, architects like Hans Poelzig and Andrei Andrejev were eager to collaborate with filmmakers, just as they had previously served theatre producers. The intersection of the two arts led to the development of a framework that held architecture as the essential and primary aspect of film-making, forming the foundation of the film's imaginative world. It suggests that the design and construction of the film set, including the choice of buildings, landscapes, and other elements, are crucial to the film's overall effect on the viewer.

At the same time, film was posited as a unique art form that combines time and space in a way that is distinct from other art forms. The idea is that film is not just a visual art that captures images or a performing art that captures movement, but rather it is an art of both time and space. Abel Gance, a French film director, was one of the first to articulate this idea in 1912 when he expressed his desire for a new "sixth art" that would capture the synthesis of the movement of space and time. He recognized that film had the potential to do this in a way that no other art form had before.

Elie Faure, a French art historian, was also interested in this idea and coined the term "cineplastics" in 1922 to describe the cinematic aesthetic that brings together the two dimensions of time and space. He was influenced by Fernand Léger, a French painter who also saw film as a unique art form that could capture the dynamic relationship between time and space.

Faure believed that cinema was first and foremost a plastic art that expressed form at rest and in movement. By incorporating time into space, cinema created a new kind of architectural space, similar to the imaginary space within the walls of the brain. Faure predicted that such an art would propel the world into a new stage of civilization, where architecture would be based on the appearance of mobile industrial constructions such as ships, trains, cars, and airplanes.

Cinema would operate as a kind of privileged "spiritual ornament" to this machine civilization, serving as the most useful social play for the development of confidence, harmony, and cohesion in the masses. This vision of cineplastics was seen as an ideal architecture, where only a great artist could build edifices that constituted themselves, collapsed, and reconstituted themselves again ceaselessly by imperceptible passages of tones and modeling that would themselves be architecture at every instant, without our being able to grasp the thousandth part of a second in which the transition takes place.

Early Horrors

In the years following World War I, German expressionist films were making a "stereoscopic universe" a reality. Films such as Paul Wegener's "Der Golem," Karl Heinz Martin's "Von Morgens bis Mitternacht," and Robert Weine's "Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari" all demonstrated that a new kind of space had emerged in cinema.

This new kind of space extended what Scheffauer called "the sixth sense of man, his feeling for space or room - his Raumgefühl." Architecture was no longer just a backdrop for the action of the film; it was now a part of the experience, and surroundings became a presence that entered the viewer's experience. Walls, streets, bridges, and other elements exerted their influence, expressing their nature and essence. This "fourth dimension" of time extended space in depth, allowing for false perspective, violent foreshadowing, and the blending of real light and shadow with painted shadow and light.

In his analysis, Scheffauer described the environments of "Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari" and anticipated many of the commonplaces of expressionist criticism. He provided a phenomenology of the spaces of Caligari, such as the corridor in an office building, a street at night, an attic room, a prison cell, a white and spectral bridge, and a marketplace. All of these spaces were constructed out of walls that were both solid and transparent, fissured and veiled, camouflaged and endlessly disappearing, presented in a forced and distorted perspective that overwhelmed the viewer's own space, incorporating it into the vortex of the whole movie.

In contrast, the film "Von Morgens bis Mitternacht" suggests a "flat space" designed by Robert Neppach in tones of black and white. This space is suggested as a background, vague, inchoate, and nebulous, creating a sense of primeval darkness.

The film "Algol" explores a "geometrical space" where space acts and speaks geometrically, creating grandiose architectural culminations with formal diapers, patterns, squares, spots, and circles, of cube imposed upon cube, of apartment opening into apartment.

Lastly, the film "Der Golem" uses "sculptural" or "solid" space as modeled by the Poelzigs. The space is conceived in plastic terms, in solid concretions congealing under the artist's hand to expressive and organic forms. The houses and streets are designed to speak in jargon and gesticulate, with an eerie and grotesque suggestiveness.

Taking it to the streets

In the 1920s, critics began to dislike the expressionist film's artificial and staged look. They wanted films to show reality as it is, rather than being idealized. Some critics, like Siegfried Kracauer, felt that the street was the best subject for filming. Kracauer, who was a former architect, believed that film was best suited for capturing the fleeting, temporary, and momentary aspects of modern life. He thought that the street was the perfect place for chance encounters and social observation. But to truly capture reality, the street had to be presented as unstaged and natural. Films that were too stylized or staged, like Metropolis or Berlin, did not capture the true essence of the street. Kracauer believed that filming the street allowed for a critical method of observing modernity that was needed to understand society.

In his work, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," Walter Benjamin discusses the potential of film as a critical aesthetic. He sees film as a way to extend our comprehension of reality by capturing hidden details and exploring familiar places under the guidance of the camera. Benjamin believes that film allows us to penetrate unconscious spaces, in the same way that psychoanalysis uncovers unconscious impulses. For Benjamin, film can make the world visible in a way that allows us to see it critically.

In this context, Benjamin suggests that the only way to render architecture critical again is to offer it to an attentive public. He suggests that architecture is usually consumed in a state of distraction, but film can change this by allowing viewers to see buildings in a new way. Benjamin goes on to propose the idea of a film of Paris, which would show the city's development over time. He sees this as a way to reveal important aspects of the theoretical problems inherent in the filmic representation of the metropolis.

Benjamin's filmic imaginary would have involved constructing new kinds of optical relations between the camera and the city, film and architecture. He would have based his ideas on previous film theory and criticism and the complex notion of "the optical unconscious." Benjamin believed that film could merge technique and content in a way that allowed us to see reality differently.

Ecstasy

The relationship between film and architecture is an intriguing one, with both mediums sharing a common characteristic - the ability to evoke a feeling of "ecstasy," or movement and excitement. This idea was first proposed by the famous filmmaker and theorist Sergei Eisenstein, who also compared architectural composition to cinematic montage. He believed that the spatial and temporal qualities of architecture made it the predecessor to film, and both mediums are capable of creating a feeling of movement and vertigo.

Eisenstein was influenced by the works of other writers and theorists such as Walter Benjamin, Thomas De Quincey, and Nikolai Gogol. His ideas have sparked the interest of architects and theorists, including Le Corbusier and Robert Mallet-Stevens, who recognized the potential relationship between film and architecture. Understanding this relationship can offer new perspectives on both architecture and film, and inspire innovative ideas in both fields.

Conclusion

The relationship between architecture and film has been beneficial to both arts, influencing each other in significant ways. Since the beginning of cinema, filmmakers have recognized the architectural properties of film and its potential to create unique spaces. Film's ability to combine time and space has been described as cineplastics, allowing for the creation of new kinds of spaces in film. This concept led to the development of expressionist films in the 1920s, which blended real and painted light and shadow to create new worlds.

Moreover, the influence of film on architecture can be seen in contemporary designs, where architects incorporate cinematic techniques into their work. The intersection of these two arts has opened up exciting possibilities for both fields, allowing architects to create more immersive and engaging experiences for their users, and filmmakers to create more dynamic and visually stimulating works. As a result, the relationship between architecture and film has become an important aspect of contemporary art and culture, continuing to shape and inspire new generations of artists and designers.

I’m so sorry for dumping all those names on you! I hope the links made it a bit easier to find your way around. I debated for a while on how best to include all these people, since leaving them out didn’t seem quite right. Have you ever paid attention to architecture in movies before? Which of these movies have you seen? Do you have your own examples you’d like to share? Personally, I haven’t seen all of the movies mentioned yet, but I did see a few (and some that I wasn’t able to work in again, like Metropolis. If you only watch one movie from this list, let it be this one!).