ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION [ARC 2332] Project 1: The Individual Perspective
The Individual Perspective of the Architecture found in the book and the movie – “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” / “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone" TIOW TZE JINN 1101P13103
1
ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION [ARC 2332] Project 1: The Individual Perspective
2
The Harry Potter film series was based on the book series by a British author J.K. Rowling who got this idea while travelling on train. The Potter Series is a magical world of love, fun, romance, hate, curse and rebirth. The attention to detail of the buildings, characters, sceneries were described by Rowling is unimaginable, by just reading the book series, we can easily imagine how the buildings look like in the fantasy world. The young Potter acted by Daniel Radcliffe grew up with these films along with his friends Ron Weasley by Rupert Grint and Hermione Granger by Emma Watson. Warner Bros distributed the film into eight series starting from the year 2001 to 2011 in a span of 10 years. The film was produced by David Heyman and Steve Kloves wrote the screenplay for the first film. The title of the book that I will like to choose for this assignment is Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone begins with Harry Potter, a shy and self-doubting boy wizard being brought up by his awful Aunty Petunia and Uncle Vernon along with his fat cousin, Dudley. Dudley lived a life of a king, whereas Harry was more like a servant. He was told by his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon that his parents died in a car crash when he was a baby, until he met Hagrid, the keeper of keys and grounds in Hogwarts that Harry’s Parents were killed by the famous dark wizard – Voldermort (also known as “You-KnowWho”) whom also gave Harry the lightning scar on his forehead. After receiving a letter from Professor Dumbledore to enter Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he successfully enter the school with the help of the half-giant, Hagrid. During the first year at the school, Harry begins to explore the magical world and learn witchcraft and wizardry along with his new friends – Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. When Harry goes in quest to prevent the Philosopher’s Stone from being stolen. A stone that can be produce an elixir to make the drinker immortal. In the end Harry comes to realize that Voldermort is the one trying to steal the Philosopher’s Stone to gain back his strength, power and his own form while residing in Professor Quirrel.
ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION [ARC 2332] 3 Project 1: The Individual Perspective In the book as well as the movie, the interesting architecture that captures my attention is the Diagon Alley. The Diagon Alley is a cobbled wizarding alley and shopping area located in London, England behind a pub called the Leaky Cauldron. With the right tap of your wand on the correct brick in the wall behind the Leaky Cauldron, the wall goes in a small hole first and forms a large archway. Inside the alley is an assortment of restaurants, shops and other sights. While walking on the cobblestone streets, the first sight will be two long rows of shops that are painted in red. When Harry has his first visit to Diagon Alley, he wished he had eight more eyes. There were shops selling robes, telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before. Windows of the shops are stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels’ eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon…
Figure 1 Diagon Alley
Gringotts Wizarding bank is known as the most famous Wizarding Bank; the safest bank known to all in the wizarding world is an imposing snow-white multistoried marble building located partway down Diagon Alley, near its intersection with Knockturn Alley, which towers over the neighboring shops. In the movie, Gringotts Bank seems to be slanting over to one side; wooden planks are installed on the slanting side to prevent the building from falling over.
ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION [ARC 2332] Project 1: The Individual Perspective
4
Figure 2 The facade of Gringotts seen from Diagon Alley
When Harry Potter first visits Gringotts, he is told by Hagrid that it is the safest place for anything valuable to be kept. From Diagon Alley, a set of white stairs leads up to a set of burnished bronze doors. The doors are flanked by a goblin in uniform of scarlet and gold, though during the Second Wizarding War, the goblin was replaced by two wizard guards with Probity Probes. This is the entrance to Gringotts, and it leads into a small entrance hall and another set of doors. Engraved on these silver doors are the words: Enter, stranger, but take heed Of what awaits the sin of greed For those who take, but do not earn, Must pay most dearly in their turn. So if you seek beneath our floors A treasure that was never yours, Thief, you have been warned, beware Of finding more than treasure there. Through these doors, also flanked with goblins, is a vast marble hall, long counters stretching along its length with doors leading off to the vault passageways with around a hundred goblins sitting at them. In contrast to the grand marble of the entryway and the main hall of the bank, the passageways to the vaults are stone and dimly lit with flaming torches. The vaults extend for miles under the city and are accessible through rough stone, complex and interconnected passageways by means
ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION [ARC 2332] 5 Project 1: The Individual Perspective of magic carts that are operated by goblins. These carts take visitors deep beneath the surface of the earth, through a “maze of twisting passages,” to the vaults.
Figure 3 Gringotts Marble Entrance
The vaults themselves vary in sizes and security. The largest most well protected vaults belong to the oldest wizarding families and lie deepest beneath the surface. Each vault is secured by a rounded heavy metal door, which makes the vaults look like a cave. Those vaults closer to the surface seem to be smaller and have fewer security precautions surrounding them – they use keys, for example, rather than requiring the touch of a goblin to gain access. The rules around who is allowed to access vaults seem to change; sometimes wizards are asked for identification or a key to be allowed access to their own vaults.
Figure 4 Vault no. 713
ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION [ARC 2332] Project 1: The Individual Perspective
6
To be able to get to Hogwarts, students of Hogwarts would have to go to King’s Cross Station to ride on the Hogwarts scarlet steam engine – Hogwarts Express. The station is used throughout the books as a symbol separating the Muggle and Wizarding worlds; when he steps onto the platform Harry begins to come into his own. King’s Cross Station is considered one of the main train stations to serve London, England.
Figure 5 King's Cross Station
Students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry take the scarlet steam engine named the Hogwarts Express to Hogwarts from Platform 9¾. Students have to walk straight at the bricked column between platforms 9 and 10 to get onto the platform. After the first film of Harry Potter was shot, the London King’s Cross Station undergoes renovation.
Figure 6 Platform 9 ¾
ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION [ARC 2332] 7 Project 1: The Individual Perspective As the movie proceeds, it brings us to Hogwarts Castle. According to the book, Hogwarts Castle is a large, seven-story high building supported by magic, with many towers and turrets and very deep dungeons, built in the late Early Middle Ages by a wizard architect and the 4 most celebrated wizards of the age – Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin. Hence in the movie, Alnwick castle is featured as Hogwarts. Scenes filmed at the castle include the first Quidditch lesson in Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone and the crash landing of the flying Ford Anglia in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets.
Figure 7 Alnwick Castle as a part of Hogwarts Castle
Figure 8 Harry and his classmates having their 1st flying lesson
ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION [ARC 2332] Project 1: The Individual Perspective
8
As Harry and the new first-years enter Hogwarts, they are greeted by Professor McGonagall. This scene was shot on the 16th century staircase, which leads up to the Great Hall. Ascending the stairs, the Great Hall lies behind the tall, heavily ornamented wooden door. The Great Hall is the primary setting that was inspired by the dining hall at Christ Church, Oxford. Walking through the doors, Harry had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. The Great Hall was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, there the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. The stone walls of the Hall are decorated with stone carved gargoyles with pots of fire hanging from their mouths. Harry looked upwards towards the ceiling and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. He heard Hermione whisper. “It’s bewitched to look like the night sky. I read about it in Hogwarts, A History. It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn’t simply open to the heavens.”
Figure 9 The Great Hall with a bewitched ceiling
ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION [ARC 2332] Project 1: The Individual Perspective
9
Figure 10 Interior of the Great Hall
After feasting in the Great Hall, the prefects of each house bring the first years to their dormitories through the moving stairs. After reading the first book, many people wondered how they would incorporate the elaborate moving staircase also known as the Grand Staircase into the film adaptation. The Grand Staircase is a massive structure in Hogwarts Castle, mainly used to access each floor of the castle, including the dungeons. In the movie, the scene shows that each floor of Hogwarts consists of the moving staircase; the wall is a long stretch from the lowest floor towards the highest floor, hundreds of moving portraits covering the walls in this tower, some of which conceal secret passages to other areas within school. The staircases lead from platform to platform and go as high as the seventh floor where they come to an end. Underneath each platform, there’s a lamp lighting the stairway up across to the highest floor.
Figure 11 The Grand Staircase in 1992
ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION [ARC 2332] Project 1: The Individual Perspective
10
Another building that captures my attention is Hagrid’s Hut. Hagrid’s Hut served as a home to Rubeus Hagrid during his years as gatekeeper and teaching at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Although in the book, J.K. Rowling originally envisioned a wooden cabin, which is located outside of Hogwarts Castle, on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. however the screenwriter see to fit that a round stone hut feels true to the atmosphere on set as well as to the character. In the movie, from afar we can see that in front Hagrid’s hut there’s a nice piece of empty yard for Hagrid to chop up woods, and do a few gardening and grow some vegetables for himself. From afar, we can also notice that the hut is slightly lifted off the ground with big stones acting as the base of the hut and a few stone steps making its way towards the main entrance of the hut. The hut has a pointed roof, two entrances with big doorways, which is big enough for Hagrid and small windows surrounding the hut. Inside the hut, the hut has a cozy setting with a fireplace set at the furthest place inside the hut.
Figure 12 Description from the book of Hagrid's Hut
Figure 13 Movie illustration of Hagrid's Hut
ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION [ARC 2332] Project 1: The Individual Perspective
11
Figure 14 Interior of Hagrid's Hut
From the movie and the book, Quidditch is the game that captures the eyes of the readers. ‘Quidditch’ is a wizarding sport played on broomsticks. It is the most popular game among wizards and witches. According to the book, in the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch, hundreds of seats were raised in stands around the pitch so the spectators were high enough to see what was going on. At either end of the pitch were golden poles with hoops on the end. In the movie, the setting for the quidditch pitch is quite similar to what the book as describe. We can see the stands surrounding the pitch are decorated differently for each Quidditch match at Hogwarts. Every second stand would be decorated with the colours of one team, and every other stand with the colours of the opposing team. Spectators would sit in between these stands. At either end of the pitch there will be three golden poles with hoops on the end and also a huge sand field for the players in case they fell from their brooms in mid air.
ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION [ARC 2332] Project 1: The Individual Perspective
12
Figure 15 Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch
Reviewing both architecture in the book as well as in the movie, I have come to realize that Rowling’s description about every single detail has make the movie possible. To see fit to the atmosphere as well as the character, the screenwriter did some changes to the buildings, although they did not turn out to be exactly alike from the book, the changes in the movie did boost up the aesthetic value of the movies, characters, sceneries as well as the storyline itself.
ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION [ARC 2332] Project 1: The Individual Perspective Reference:
13
Harry Potter Wiki. Retrieved from http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page IMDB. [2001, Nov 16] Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0241527/ J.K. Rowling (1997). Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. United Kingdom, United States & Canada: Bloomsbury (UK), Scholastic / Arthur A. Levine (US) & Raincoast (Canada). Mundane, U. [2011, July] Harry Potter, a brief summary on the books. Momscribe perpectual thinkings. Retrieved from: http://www.momscribe.com/2011/07/harry-potter-brief-summary-on-books.html