Ever since I watched Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel in 2014, I have been fascinated with the world of design and architecture that is portrayed in the backdrops of some of the world’s best movies and stage performances. It has always been true that design forms a massive part of visual communication, but credit has seldom been given to the built-form for holding a scene together on screen and stage.
From Frank Gehry to Bjarke Ingels, architects have always dabbled with the art of production design and rightly so! Any effective film or television scene does not just appease its audience but also anchors them to the narrative and there is no better way to achieve this than using architecture to capture the essence of the story. Be it the fascinating world of Harry Potter filled with grand castles, mysterious streets and magical train stations or a comedy-drama like Forrest Gump where the subtle background of an American Southern town helps build the character, the built-form is just as important as any other character in the scene. It transports us to a different time and space that tethers us to the story line. Simply put, the art of storytelling and architecture go hand in hand.
The architecture in a film can also be an asset in establishing the era or timeline of the story. For movies like Spartacus, Gladiator, Troy and Cleopatra, architecture meant recreating a bygone era that we have never experienced. It takes a lot of research, passion, manpower and artistic vision to bring such worlds to life. Locations and set designs can account for a major portion of the producer’s investment and needs to be perfected before it can be presented to an audience. For the 1963 movie Cleopatra, one of the most expensive movies ever produced, over 70 sets had to be designed including recreating the 35 foot-tall Sphinx, the Roman Forum and Cleopatra’s extravagant chambers. There is no doubt that the cinematic universe would be incomplete without buildings to complement the characters, which is why some of the most prestigious awards in film and television have separate categories for production/set design.
The earliest examples of architecture that defined a cinematic production would have to be Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent film — Metropolis and the 1933 stop-motion animation film, King Kong — both among the most visually powerful films of their time. While Metropolis was set in a dystopian future and took inspiration from architect Antonio Sant’Elia’s elaborate city-scape drawings, King Kong felt closer to home with a more realistic backdrop which magnified the effect of its central character. The climactic scene in the movie shows Kong, a horrific and humongous gorilla-like monster plummet down the Empire State Building which was created using miniature models. The scene garnered a lot of attention as for its time, the Empire State Building portrayed the epitome of high-rise structures, which felt indestructible and untouchable. For someone to climb it and destroy it as easily as crushing a grape, left people amazed and produced the exact horrific reaction that the film-makers were hoping to instill.
The next significant movie that played off architecture and influenced the story was Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 classic thriller — North by Northwest. Hitchcock, much like most architecture students, was inspired by F.L. Wright’s Fallingwater and instructed the set designers to create a house for the central character, using Wright’s design style. Though a variety of locations were used in the production of the film, the house designed to be atop Mount Rushmore was integral to the final scene of the movie and the characteristic details of the built-form won the film an Oscar nomination for Best Art Direction.
It is pretty evident from the above-mentioned films that the location of the climax scene has a lot of impact in bringing together the plot of the film and giving it an artistic release. It is not only visually appealing but also triggers an intense reaction from audiences especially for genres like horror and thrillers. It appeals to the imagination of the viewers as they can relate to the built-form around them and wonder what if the story on the screen becomes a reality! It creates tension and directors of horror and thriller movies feed off this reaction from their audiences and thus have to pay a lot of attention to the spaces they create in their movies.
But just as architecture plays an integral role in augmenting the effect of a story, it can also be used subtly to complement the spirit of the characters instead of the location. A perfect example of this would be Little Women, the 1994 as well as the 2019 version, both based on the bestseller by Louisa May Alcott. Little Women is the story of the March sisters, living in a small town in Massachusetts as they deal with romance and domestic life. The locations of the film include the Colonial mansion of the March sisters, dull from the outside but equally lively on the inside where there is constant movement; the large empty mansions of Aunt March and the Laurence Estate reflect the void of homeliness that the characters feel and the vast fields where they spend their leisurely moments are a reminder of their free-spirited childhood.
While the buildings themselves do not stand out, they accentuate the quirks of the characters involved and create a picture-perfect yet subtle backdrop as the story progresses.
The same can be said for the critically acclaimed web series — Big Little Lies (2017), set in the small beach town of Monterey, California. The show provides some of the most scenic beach houses on screen and highlights the characters’ wealth and style. The houses of each of the central characters are unique to reflect their distinctive personalities. Madeline, one of the central women in the show is portrayed as a house-wife desperate to keep her traditional family-life alive therefore most of her scenes are focused on the kitchen with warm lights and lots of space for the family to gather. In contrast, the houses of characters Celeste and Renata feel colder and have a grey-blue colour palette and floor to ceiling curtain walls, reflecting their dynamic yet minimalist style. The quirkiest house in the show belongs to a character named Bonnie who’s a yoga instructor, has a more spiritual personality and is married to a landscape architect. Therefore their house has a warm feeling with lots of plants, outdoor seating with natural wood furniture and is filled with ceramics and Asian artefacts.
In retrospect, we can say that over the years, movies and television series’ have become a traveller’s delight as they not only highlight individual buildings but also bring certain cities through the screen and into our reality. Our perception of a city’s architecture and design often stems from the visuals created on screen. Paris, the city of lights has been a muse for directors for decades; movies like Midnight in Paris (2011) by Woody Allen and the 2012 movie adaptation of Victor Hugo’s book Les Misérables by Tom Hooper are both brilliant examples of this. While Les Misérables portrays’ 19th century Paris, the former is more focused on the early 20th century Art Nouveau movement in Paris and its effect on architecture. To bring the story of Les Misérables to life, the production designer Eve Stewart had to create over 90 sets and take inspiration from Hugo’s original sketches. The end result was an award-winning film set, which showcased the reality of Paris as it was in the 1800s.
Then there are movies like Manhattan (1979), Lost in Translation (2003) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) that make the audience fall in love with the locations they film in. The cities of New York, Tokyo and Los Angeles help in captivating the essence of these stories. No sets are required, as the city’s own energy is enough to propagate the theme of the movie.
Woody Allen decided to make Manhattan in a black and white format as it reminded him of his childhood memories around New York City. In an iconic scene shot at the Queensboro Bridge, the leads, Mary and Isaac sit at a park bench, observing the stillness of the city and the bridge at dawn. The scene is considered till date one of the most romantic shots in cinema and due credit should be given to the Queensboro Bridge which added a sense of surreal romanticism to it. The bridge also ignites a fantasy that a scenic view and the company of a stranger often leads to the illusion of falling in love; which is what Woody Allen’s story is about, self-deception and the poetic nature of New York City. People from all over the world travel to New York today to visit the landmark locations where the film was shot, wanting to experience ‘Allen’s New York’. In such scenes, a city’s architecture and streetscapes add another dimension to the film and can have a psychological and emotional impact on a character.
One of the most obvious contributions that architecture and design make to the world of storytelling and cinema is through fantasy and sci-fi genre of films. This is illustrated best in sci-fi movies like the Star Wars series (1977–83), Batman (1989) and the 2017 fantasy-romance The Shape of Water. In more recent releases, Black Panther (2018), a franchise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has received critical acclaim and praise for its futuristic architectural design. The production designer of Black Panther, Hannah Beachler described the inspiration behind the fantasy world that she created as a blend of Zaha Hadid and the Buckingham Palace. The film’s success can be credited to the creation of Wakanda, a fictional country where the movie is set. The aesthetic of the film largely depended on the architecture and costumes of this imaginary world. The grandness and enormity of Wakanda and the buildings, especially Black Panther’s residence plays a major role in painting a larger than life picture that the audience appreciates when it comes to superhero movies. The futuristic design that the movie depicts has influences of experimental architecture, speed, modern technology, automation and other fast elements. Directors of superhero and sci-fi movies depend on digital and parametric designs to bring their stories to life and create a lasting impact on its viewers, and some may say even that they motivate future designers and architects to achieve the impossible.
Fantasy worlds of Star Wars, Batman and The Shape of Water too try to achieve a suprematist architectural style through their geometric designs and limited colour palettes.
The reason why Batman and his arch-nemesis Joker, resonate with the audience on such a large scale is these these are two characters that have a deep-rooted connection to the city that created them. With every director of Batman, comes a different outlook on the fictional city of Gotham. But one thing that remains a constant in all the versions of Gotham City is the urban dystopia that forces dark and violent elements to emerge. To represent this dark and corrupt nature of Gotham City, Tim Burton took inspiration from modern metropolitan cities with high-rise skyscrapers and glass towers and added a layer of defilement and pollution. He was directly influenced by the earlier mentioned 1927 classic Metropolis and German expressionist architectural style.
When it comes to fantasy films, Tim Burton is the unofficial maestro. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Beetlejuice, Sleepy Hollow and Sweeny Todd are just a few of his greatest achievements in the line of production design. Each of these stories can transport us into an illustrious fantasy world with fantastic details that set each movie apart. Alice in Wonderland is one of my favourite fantasy adventure films’ which combines two-dimensional motion pictures and three-dimensional animations to create the wonderful world of Alice. Fairy tales have a mystical way of connecting the unreal world to the real world so that people can relate and be inspired by the stories despite it being an imaginative scenario. In Alice in Wonderland, the architectural features like the castles, the landscapes, the forest, the rabbit hole etc have a lot of symbolism and the principle of scale and proportion is extremely well used to define the story. The Red Queen’s castle has some of the most impressive details in the entire film, complete with furniture resembling animals and large-scale landscape features.
While movies are taking architectural design to new heights, the small screens aren’t too far behind. In 2011, HBO released the internationally-famed show Game of Thrones based on George R.R.Martin’s series of novels — A Song of Ice and Fire. I think it is fair to say that Game of Thrones by far has the best architecturally stunning visuals, thanks to their visionary production designer Deborah Riley. The show’s filming locations are situated all over the globe from Croatia to Spain to Morocco and have serious logistical challenges, so it comes as no surprise that Deborah is not only a talented designer but also an experienced architect. Most of the sets are a beautiful blend of the geography of a place and architectural grandeur. In the fictional land of Westeros, multiple story arcs are pursued and each location has its unique features.
My personal favourite would have to be The House of Black and White which was first featured in season 5. The House of Black and White is a temple in the fictional city of Braavos, where it sits isolated on an island and can only be reached by boat. The temple was inspired from the city of Varanasi set on the banks of river Ganges and the interiors were inspired from the Temple of 1000 Buddhas in Hong Kong as well as the caves of Ellora (Sisson). From Frank Lloyd Wright to Louis Khan’s Salk Institute, the physical design of the show drew inspiration from various cities and buildings around the world to create Westeros. The story has everything from dire wolves to dragons and a rich monocracy ruling them all and a fantasy like this needs an equally opulent and mystifying environment to make it believable to the viewers. The grandiose of the scenery creates an immersive experience for the audience.
Western media has indeed dominated the world of cinematic built-form but we must commend the work produced by the Indian cinema too. From movies like Mughal-e-Azam (1960) to Bajirao Mastani (2015), our historical epics have had some of the most exquisite sets on screen. Mies van der Rohe was absolutely right when he said that ‘God is in the details’ and directors like Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Zoya Akhtar leave no stone unturned when it comes to using architectural details to complement their stories. But if there was a race, Baahubali (2015–17) would be the unquestionable winner. The film received a lot of praise for the creation of the fictional city of Mahishmati, a one-of-a-kind masterpiece known for its monumental scale and details. The country was so impressed with the work of director Rajamouli, that the government of Andhra Pradesh invited him to contribute to the designing of their new capital city Amravati (Dalvi). Sets of Baahubali were a culmination of Indian history, folklore and mythology all embodied in the city of Mahishmati. Watching the film takes us back to the cities of Ayodhya, Dwarka and Indraprastha that we have been reading about for ages.
It is conspicuous that cinema cannot be created in a void. Motion pictures and the art of architecture have some parallels. They both aim at creating experiences for people, physically and psychologically and only achieve success if they manage to appease their user’s senses. From historical and fantasy genres to drama and science fiction, every category of cinema and theatre requires attention to detail and architectural accuracy to make their point.
In February 2020, South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho released Parasite, a black comedy thriller that centred around two residential houses. The houses have a magnificent influence on the characters and the progression of the story. While the Park family lives in a fancy villa designed by a fictional architect, the Kim family resides in an underground semi-basement flat crouched together trying to survive the adversity of the recession. The story follows the lives of the Kim family as they lie their way into the Park family home as qualified domestic employees. The audience needs to pay close attention to the design of the houses to follow the story.
The Park family home represents their social status and taste, with a large open floor plan and clean-cut lines and glass facades. The Kim family on the other end live in a dingy and filthy basement as it is all that they can afford. The film shows a clear classification between the economic backgrounds of the two families through the design of their living spaces. The production designer of the film Lee Ha-Jun, in an interview, mentioned how the architecture links the two families with sunlight. “The poorer you are, the less sunlight you have access to, and that’s just as how it is in real life as well”, says Lee during the interview (Bedingfield). The film has been created so thoughtfully and every architectural detail is eminent, and this is what made Parasite this year’s Oscar winner for Best Film and Set Design.
Architecture and cinema are both different forms of art and will therefore always be linked and merged and as it can be seen from the above-mentioned examples, the blending of these two disciplines have created some of the best visuals of our time. And if you still disagree, next time you go to the theatre, try imagining a scene between characters with a blank backdrop. It will put everything into perspective.