IITheBarbican

Re-Framing the Barbican

In episode 7 of Andor, ‘Announcement’, the Barbican is used as a meeting point between two rebels undercover in Coruscant. There are two scenes of the Barbican, a montage of walking shots, both outside and inside the centre. The first scene follows a female character in disguise known as ‘Kleya’ who appears to be from an upper-middle class background. (See Fig.12 ) The second scene continues to show Kleya walking, reaching her meeting point with an undercover rebel, ’Vel’, to discuss the location of money acquired and the next job at hand. (See Fig.14)

When filming an architectural structure, the film not only frames it, but re-frames. The act of framing the Barbican in Andor for this scene, much like the duplication of an image, amounts to an intervention of the Barbican within its social context. 23 (Fig. 11) This intervention of the social context within a frame, even within a Brutalist architectural style, is inevitable. Kim Dovey explains in ‘Framing Places’ that:

“Because architecture and urban design involve transformations in the ways we frame life, because design is the imagination and production of the future, the field cannot claim autonomy from the politics of social change”