Architecture & Cinema

Architecture and design play a fundamental role in cinema, not just through carefully constructed backdrops, either real or fictional; but also, as metaphorical elements that help the viewer to delve into the psyche of the protagonists. Films where space, lighting and photography work as tools to create ambiences, sensations and experiences, a few of which we have selected below to explore.

Directed in 1927 by Fritz Lang Metropolis is without doubt one of the pioneering films in its exploration of the relationship between architecture and the seventh art, with an elaborate lighting design that plays with representations of space, volume and chiaroscuro.

A utopia predicting a future urban reality in a city of 2026 that was already emerging at that time: a stratified urb where each of the architectural typologies represents a different social class, where intellectuals live in a city of skyscrapers and elevated structures while the workers live under them in an antagonistic setting, industrialised and underground.

Alfred Hitchcock is without doubt one of the greats in terms of the relationship between architecture, lighting and cinema, with films like Rear Window (1954) that explores its action through a quintessential architectural element filled with symbolism, the window.

With Psycho (1960) the director materialises different levels of Freudian psychosis over the three floors of the Bates House with a high contrast lighting, including the famous shower scene where the silhouette of the murderer, only seen as a shadow, helps to establish a less direct relationship, and in some ways empathetic one with the viewer.

1971 brings one of Stanley Kubrick’s greatest cinematic milestones to fruition: A Clockwork Orange. A film based on the novel by Anthony Burgess of the same name, conjured up through its brutalist buildings, like the Jaffe House (Skybreak House) designed by Sir Norman Foster, Wendy Cheesman and Sir Richard Rogers, the Thamesmead Housing Estate or the Brunel University London campus, that portray a violent and dehumanised society.

Years later Kubrick directed The Shining (1980) inspired by the eponymous novel by Stephen King, exploiting with the symbolism of the labyrinth to reflect on the psychopathy of its protagonist. The director decided on a completely realistic narrative approach to lighting in this case that morphs from a warm light at the beginning to bluer tones as the winter advances reflecting the cold exterior world and isolation of the characters.

Directed by Ridley Scott in 1982 Blade Runner is another must see. A dystopian, chaotic and hedonistic vision of the city of Los Angeles in the year 2019, based in part on the Philip K. Dick novella Do androids dream of electric sheep? (1968), where the skyscrapers and neon lights coexist with over-populated suburbs and industrial chimneys.