u CINEMATIC METHODS OF DESIGN
ARCHITECTURE IS FILM
TAN XUN HUI ZENON
u SINGAPORE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN MASTERS OF ARCHITECTURE
uALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE, AND ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN MERELY PLAYERS; THEY HAVE THEIR EXITS AND THEIR ENTRANCES; AND ONE MAN IN HIS TIME PLAYS MANY PARTS, HIS ACTS BEING SEVEN AGES. AT FIRST THE INFANT, MEWLING AND PUKING IN THE NURSE’S ARMS; AND THEN THE WHINING SCHOOL-BOY, WITH HIS SATCHEL AND SHINING MORNING FACE, CREEPING LIKE SNAIL UNWILLINGLY TO SCHOOL. AND THEN THE LOVER, SIGHING LIKE FURNACE, WITH A WOEFUL BALLAD MADE TO HIS MISTRESS’ EYEBROW. THEN A SOLDIER, FULL OF STRANGE OATHS, AND BEARDED LIKE THE PARD, JEALOUS IN HONOUR, SUDDEN AND QUICK IN QUARREL, SEEKING THE BUBBLE REPUTATION EVEN IN THE CANNON’S MOUTH. AND THEN THE JUSTICE, IN FAIR ROUND BELLY WITH GOOD CAPON LIN’D, WITH EYES SEVERE AND BEARD OF FORMAL CUT, FULL OF WISE SAWS AND MODERN INSTANCES; AND SO HE PLAYS HIS PART. THE SIXTH AGE SHIFTS INTO THE LEAN AND SLIPPER’D PANTALOON, WITH SPECTACLES ON NOSE AND POUCH ON SIDE; HIS YOUTHFUL HOSE, WELL SAV’D, A WORLD TOO WIDE FOR HIS SHRUNK SHANK; AND HIS BIG MANLY VOICE, TURNING AGAIN TOWARD CHILDISH TREBLE, PIPES AND WHISTLES IN HIS SOUND. LAST SCENE OF ALL, THAT ENDS THIS STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY, IS SECOND CHILDISHNESS AND MERE OBLIVION; SANS TEETH, SANS EYES, SANS TASTE, SANS EVERYTHING. n (FROM AS YOU LIKE IT, SPOKEN BY JAQUES) WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR
SUTD MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE THESIS PREPARATION DOCUMENT
ARCHITECTURE IS FILM: THE CINEMATIC METHODS OF DESIGN TAN XUN HUI ZENON, MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE STUDENT ADVISOR: ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, CHRISTINE YOGIAMAN, ARCHITECTURE AND SUSTAINABLE DESIGN SECOND ADVISOR: SENIOR LECTURER, DR. JAMES ROWLINS, HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES E-MAIL: ZENON_TAN@MYMAIL.SUTD.EDU.SG
uABSTRACT
The advent of film making and its associated technologies in the past century has dramatically altered the way stories are told. Bounded only by imagination, the cinema is a powerful medium to experience stories and its limitless possibilities. Film making is not only about the development of a narrative and its characters; at the heart of film making is the intent to create; to create a new reality carefully crafted from the preexisting. Armed with a camera, a filmmaker seeks to craft the spaces on the screen, and tell a story through not only the narrative, but through its atmospheric qualities. Film is a powerful tool in design, and film is architecture. Film is the perfect form of architecture; especially as a form of sensorial architecture, that is, an object that purely exists to evoke emotions. The power of control available in the techniques and technologies used in the film industry allows filmmakers to create perfect scenes, which are perfect acts of architecture. These measures of controls can be manifested as perfect tools to craft spaces, events, movements and atmospheres. Since the beginning of time, architects have been seeking to harness such a power of control, and because reality is an unpredictable system of uncertainties and unknowns, such controls in architecture are limited in its potential. With the introduction of the cinema, a spatio-temporal object, the power of control, becomes apparent. How then do we apply such perfect controls in the crafting of spaces in reality? This thesis attempts to explore architectural methods of sensorial design through the study of film to extract important tools and techniques used to craft spaces and curate sensorial experiences. The results of the study of film would be applied to the design of new form of entertainment, and the space it shall inhabit, manifested as the new Kabuki experience in Tokyo, Japan.
u Acknowledgments Abstract 1
Film is Architecture
3
Filmic Techniques
4
Filmic Design
The Spatio-Temporal Object Equivalences Film as Sensorial Architecture
Mise-En-Scene: Space Choreography: Movements Editing: Event Light and Sound: Atmosphere
Blade Runner 2049 In the Mood for Love Conclusion
5
Architecture as Film
Architecture as a Sensorial Form Understanding the Limits of Film Architecture of Pleasure
CONTENTS
6
Hedonism in Architecture
Teshima Art Museum / Ryue Nishizawa Casa Palestra / OMA Paris Zoological Park / Bernard Tschumi
7
Hedonism in Tokyo
8
Tokyo is a Film: Design Potential
Tokyo-ness: Dualities Ueno Park Asakusa Roppongi
Reimagining Traditional Arts The New Kabuki Sumida Park Methodology Schedule for Term 10
9 Bibliography and References
u PART I FILM IS ARCHITECTURE
u FILM IS ARCHITECTURE
“STORIES HOLD CONFLICT AND CONTRAST, HIGHS AND LOWS, LIFE AND DEATH, AND THE HUMAN STRUGGLE AND ALL KINDS OF THINGS.” _ DAVID LYNCH
Introduction Architecture is the crafting of spaces from the unlimited reality; architecture seeks to curate the very reality one is in, and in the ultimate way, a powerful tool of control. Similarly, the creation of a film is a design process unlike many others; the crafting of an immaculate world to tell a story through the manipulation of the physical, and in the more recent times, the digital. Film is a powerful design tool with many lessons one can learn from, especially with its ability to transcend reality and alter the perception of its viewers. In Rashomon (1950), director Akira Kurosawa attempts to manipulate reality through the use of tools in storytelling and cinema available at his time, to tell a story about perception.
RASHOMON AKIRA
(1950), KUROSAWA
SCENES DOGVILLE BY LARS
FROM (2003) VON TRIER
The Spatio-Temporal Object
Bernard Tschumi describes architecture in his book, Architecture and Disjunction, as a “spatio-temporal form, interweaved of time, space and successive events within”. Architecture is composed of “space, event and movement”.
Architecture is about the crafting of spaces from the vast infinite; the primitive idea of creating a space from natural elements has evolved into a much sophisticated realm through history. Architecture is more than buildings; it is the about the curation of reality through the idea of physical, and metaphysical elements architects seek to control and use. Architects seek to create and curate the perception of the physical, which is very much filmmaking.
Film represents this “spatio-temporal form” in the most perfect way possible. Space, time and narrative are choreographed and controlled in the most perfect manner. Both the film and architecture articulate lived space, made up of ‘space, event, and movement’, described by Tschumi as the fundamental elements of architecture. How can we extract important tools, processes, methods and ideas in filmmaking and apply it to the making of spaces?
The cinema has always depended upon Architecture to create its own filmic reality; movies require a setting, and sets are usually constructed in order to fulfill that particular reality. Similarly, real life places have also been used to create films. The setting is important to architecture. Without it, the context of the narrative gets lost. In the Art House film Dogville (2003) by Lars Von Trier, the concept of the set gets taken to the extreme. The setting of the village the movie is set in is reduced to a series of minimalist doors and objects, the village into a plan. The approach of subverting a conventional set adds an additional element of surrealism to the movie. The power of control is almost a sense of falseness and delusion. The viewers of Dogville are forced to pretend the set is set in a real location is almost architectural, in the same way architecture places boundaries upon the real world.
“SPATIO-TEMPORAL FORM, INTERWEAVED OF TIME, SPACE AND SUCCESSIVE EVENTS WITHIN�
Architecture in Cinema
In Metropolis (1927) by Fritz Lang, one of the first science fiction films, a commentary about class warfare and struggle, had been influenced by the various art and architectural movements of its time, a clear commentary of its contemporary reality. The city becomes a character in the film, showcasing the German Expressionist film style of the 1920s, and the socioeconomic upheaval and turmoil of Post World War I Germany.
Blade Runner (1982) by Ridley Scott has influenced a great many Sci-Fi films after it, also showcases the futuristic dystopia as a character, through its monolithic, Brutalist inspired, buildings, and the fluorescent accented neon signs of Hong Kong and Tokyo. It exudes a certain kind of beauty in this brutal, post-technological world inhabited by flying cars, advertisements and multilingual denizens. It is fascinating to note that as viewers, and not inhabitants, of this imaginary world, one is particularly drawn to it, despite having never stepped foot into that reality. The power of cinema transcends realities.
THE POWER OF CINEMA TRANSCENDS REALITIES.
TOP TO BOTTOM: IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2003) BLADE RUNNER (1983) METROPOLIS (1927)
Cinema in Architecture Conversely, the cinema has also affected modern architecture in a huge number of ways. Visions of the city has been altered drastically by the fictitious, or real, locations created in films. Manhattan being romanticised, and immortalised in the film of the namesake in 1979 by Woody Allen, Tokyo by Sofia Coppola in Lost in Translation (2003). Bernard Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette in Paris, France, envisions the park as a cinematic object, of an unrolled film strip, centred around the idea of exploration and movement through the use of the cinematic sequence and montage used in film. Space, event and movement, defined by Tschumi in Architecture and Disjunction, becomes the basis for the design of the park. Parc de la Villette
becomes the filmic setting a multitude of narratives can happen as one moves through the space. Rem Koolhas, who he was a screenwriter before an architect, also noted the similarities in architecture and film, “ ...I think the art of the scriptwriter is to conceive sequences of episodes that build suspense and a chain of events. The largest part of my work is my montage... spatial montage”.
LEFT TO RIGHT: EVENT AT PARC DE LA VILLETTE (BERNARD TSCHUMI) PROCESS DIAGRAM OF PARC DE LA VILLETTE
FILM OR ARCHITECTURE?
TOP TO BOTTOM: DESIGN DIAGRAM OF BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN SERGEI EISENSTEIN THE MANHATTAN TRANSCRIPTS BERNARD TSCHUMI
As much as film is a Spatio-temporal form, it is in essence, poetry. Film seeks to incite certain emotions through poetic motion imagery and sound, and very much like Architecture, film tells a story. As viewers, we are emotionally engaged while watching a film. The film excites our imagination by allowing us to mentally construct spaces and visuals that are on, or off screen, in the film. Film allows for a degree of interpretation through nuance and audiovisual cues crafted by the filmmaker. A film is very much a journey into a different reality as much as experiencing spaces. We become part of the film.
ARCHITECTURE GOES BEYOND THE CREATION OF SPACES, ARCHITECTURE IS ABOUT THE CREATION OF AN EXPERIENCE.
Film as Sensorial Architecture
The primary function of the film is to entertain, through telling a story using sensory tools of light and sound, and film is, as discussed, a powerful tool in crafting architecture because of the power of control filmmakers have in crafting reality. Through using methods used in filmmaking, we can better craft spaces for sensorial stimulation.
TOP TO BOTTOM: BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017) BY RIDLEY SCOTT TESHIMA ART MUSEUM (RYUE NISHIZAWA / REI NAITO) FEELINGS ARE FACTS (OLAFUR ELIASSON AND MA YANSONG)
Gaston Bachelard describes this poetic image in The Poetics of Space as being “...not an echo of the past. On the contrary: through the brilliance of any image, the distant past resounds with echoes.”. In The Poetics of Architecture, Anthony C. Antoniades also describes, in The Poetics of Architecture, this poetic image as a form of hybrid extra-spatial space as an “act of physical construction and
FILM
OR
ARCHITECTURE?
a mental act of construing� The elements that constitute the poetic image links both the mental, as memory and lived experience, and the physical space. The lived space is not just felt physically; a well designed space resonates with us on a mental level as well, through the manipulation of the physical space, and its atmospheric qualities. Film is also very much creating an experience through the control of physical space with its audiovisual elements. Similarly, architecture also creates a perceived space, by linking the mental states of its users to the designed physical space, and manipulating its various atmospheric qualities such as light and shadow, sound and smell, into giving the users a sensory experience of the space. Architecture goes beyond the creation of spaces, architecture is about the creation of an experience.
TOP TO BOTTOM: THE MIRROR (1975) BY ANDREI TARKOVSKY MELANCHOLIA (2011) BY LARS VON TRIER DREAMS (1990) BY AKIRA KUROSAWA
Juhani Pallasmaa, in The Architecture of Image- Existential Space in Cinema, describes experiencing a space as “a dialogue, a kind of exchange- I place myself in the space and the space settles in me. This identification of physical and mental space is intuitively grasped by writers and film directors.” Indeed, film is the perfect form of sensorial architecture. By recognising the potential of film in designing experiential spaces, we can apply the techniques used by filmmakers in creating this lived space into designing architecture. Film is about creating a reality that tells a story, and it is done through the manipulation of space inside the frame of the film, through its world building and camera work, and time, through its sequencing methods, the montage and editing. Through the manipulation of the atmospheric qualities, memory, desire and empathy of the spectator are altered. The ‘feeling’ created by the film is ephemeral, very much like architecture. This ‘feeling’ is phenom-
enological; it can never be quantified directly, but a combination of all the elements that come together to construct this poetic image. Architects are in control of the material reality of space and atmosphere, but are never directly in control of time the way filmmakers are in creating a film. Temporal sequences flow continuously in reality, unlike in a film where time can be sped up, slowed down, or even reversed. Architecture can only indirectly affect the passage of time through controlling the perception of time, through the movement of people through space, especially through editing techniques. In film, the spectators of the filmic space are static; in a typical viewing environment of a cinema they are seated and lights turned off, depriving their senses of the environment, into a total immersive experience, movement is only conveyed in the screen. In architecture however, the spectator may be moving or static, and environmental triggers changes the experience. How do we then extract such methods of a totally immersive experience, that film seems to completely master, into architecture? Lastly, reality is an undetermined system of uncertainty, unknowns and unpredictability, and despite the power of architects in controlling every column and beam, volume and void, light and shadow, the predetermined experience is sometimes unpredictable. NIGHTHAWKS (1942) EDWARD HOPPER
FILM IS THE PERFECT SENSORIAL ARCHITECTURE; FILM IS THE PUREST FORM OF A SENSORIAL OBJECT THAT IS EXPRESSED THROUGH ITS SPATIO-TEMPORAL FORMAT.
Film, hence, is able to achieve what architecture cannot. Film is the perfect sensorial architecture; film is the purest form of a sensorial object that is expressed through its spatio-temporal format. Recognising the limits of architecture in controlling the sensorial perception of in the crafting of a spatio-temporal object, we look to film in providing some of the solutions, if any at all, in designing spaces.
u FILMIC TECHNIQUES
Introduction To achieve a greater understanding of film and the power of control it has in crafting reality, techniques used in filmmaking needs to be understood. The construction of a film takes place in multiple layers. Bearing the characteristics of a spatio-temporal object, filmic techniques span across space, time and atmospheric elements in order to generate a narrative. In order to understand the film, we can look at film as a whole, or as a composition of separate layers. By treating film as a spatio-temporal form, it allows for analytical dissection.
The main components of a film relevant to this discussion of the elements identified previously are: 1) 2) 3) 4)
Mise-en-Scene: Space Editing: Event Choreography: Movement Sound and Light: Atmosphere
Associating the filmic techniques to the elements of architecture as defined by Bernard Tschumi gives us a correlation of these elements to film, hence a greater point of focus. It is important to gain an understanding of these filmic techniques in the design of a film as much as it is vital in understand design processes and materiality in the construction of spaces.
The Mise-en-Scene, French for “placing on stage”, refers to the design of the scene in film. When applied to the cinema, it refers to everything that appears before the camera, and in the physical frame of the film, bounded by its technical aspect ratio. It encompasses a series of elements present in filmmaking, such as composition, set and lighting, in the spatial dimension. Mise-en-Scene describes the process of crafting a scene through storytelling visually or poetically, and it translates the vision of the filmmaker from its physical reality, into the cinematic reality, and it marries the beauty of visual expression with the poetics of storytelling. Mise-en-Scene is about the manipulation of the spatial qualities on screen, to derive certain nuance and emotional reaction from its viewers.
TOP TO BOTTOM: LIFE OF PI (2012) BY ANG LEE DAYS OF HEAVEN (1978) BY TERRENCE MALICK SILENCE (2016) BY MARTIN SCORSESE
MISE EN SCENE NOUN THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE SCENERY, PROPS, ETC. ON THE STAGE OF A THEATRICAL PRODUCTION OR ON THE SET OF A FILM
Mise-en-Scene: Space
In architecture, this ‘mise-enscene’ can refer to the crafting of the space, that is usually manifested as a series of images one shows to a client or a stakeholder to describe the project. These are usually drawings or renderings that incite a certain quality of the space one wants to convey. Architecture has rarely ever been crafted through a series of images that include subject in its space, but rather by diagrams, plans and sections. It will be fascinating to imagine architecture that is purely crafted through Mise-en-Scene. In In The Mood For Love (2000), Director Wong Kar Wai and cinematographer Christopher Doyle makes use of nostalgia, through its period set pieces and location, and the “frame
within frame� techniques through its architectural setting to display the internal oppression and struggle of the main characters to showcase a movie about a doomed, forbidden love affair; a perfect marriage of the visual and poetry. The Mise-en-Scene is what the rendering is to architecture. The perfect composition of the static image tells the narrative, mood and atmosphere of the space. The Mise-en-Scene elevates the narrative of the film by emphasising important elements, through its placing, lighting, and the construction of the frame. It gives the narrative the style. It gives the function, a form.
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000) BY WONG KAR WAI
The Mise-en-Scene is also a powerful functional tool in the construction of the filmic image, the image that is contained by the frame that is presented to the spectator. Whatever that is contained in the frame is the only reality the spectator knows, and the only reality the film is. Lastly, the Mise-en-Scene contains a number of elements, including settings and prop, facial expression and body language, costume, hair and makeup, lighting and color, frame composition, lighting and color. Because Mise-en-Scene can extend beyond the scope of this thesis, we will limit the discussion to elements related to spatial design. They are the subject and the setting, as scale and placement.
Scale Robert Smithson in Cinematic Atopia describes the scale in film as “out of proportion. Scale inflates or deflates into uneasy dimensions. We wander between the towering and the bottomless. We are lost between the abyss within us and the boundless horizons outside us.”. Scale changes in film, especially close-ups, convey a sense of absurdity in proportion because in reality, such close-ups can be absurd. However, such absurdity have the potential in the design of spaces to evoke powerful emotions. Scale changes convey a sense of proportion, or out of proportion, when juxtaposed, and this is also prevalent in architecture. The changes in scale in the choreographing of spaces change the proportion of the subject to the space, hence evokes different effects on the spectator.
The study of the subject and the setting as main participants in the Miseen-Scene of scale corresponds to the two Archicinematic scales both the filmmaker and the architect work in, and how these two scales interact with the physical frame that is the screen in film, and the space, experienced by our sensory limits, such as our field of vision, in carving out in reality in architecture. The subject and the setting are opposing forces in the Mise-en-Scene. What is not taken up by the subject is taken up by the setting. The subject refers to the scale at which the characters take up the frame. Typically, a shot where the subject takes up is small portion of the frame (long shot) is to emphasise its settings, or to convey ‘smallness’, while a ‘close-up’ is to emphasise intense emotions.
CHANGES IN SCALE IN BLADE RUNNER 2049 DEPICT DIFFERENT EMOTIONS AND MEANINGS IN THE MISE-ENSCENE
Continuous, scale changes in film are controlled by the distance the object is to the camera. The camera controls this distance physically, either as Dolly or tracking shot as a moving camera, or technically, through the use of zoom. The differences in these two methods can convey a very different effect on the viewers. A zoom typically describes an emphasis in a certain object of the frame, while a tracking shot typically describes, not only the importance, but also velocity of the subject.
Besides continuous changes in scale by the use of camera, editing also controls scale changes. These filmic elements usually go hand in hand, complimenting each other.
Placement Placement in cinema can refer to the placement of the subject in relation to the frame in the scene, or the placement of the camera, in terms of its angle, in relation to the setting being filmed. Placement of the subject is about proportion and symmetry. Generally, a well composed and harmonious frame of shot is well balanced, through the use of the rule of thirds or the golden ratio. The arrangement of the subject to the setting can indicate distance, movement, tension, suspense or isolation. Placement is a tool that can be used according to the narrative to derive nuance. In the three scenes from three different films show on the left, the use of perspective as a placement tool derives different meanings based on the narrative and how it is being used. In the first scene from The Shining (1980) by Stanley Kubrick, the use of the symmetrical scene with a straight perspective. The sense of dread as the boy approaches the two girls adds to the horror of the film.
LEFT: THE SHINING (1980) BY STANLEY KUBRICK MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001) BY DAVID LYNCH BLACK SWAN (2010) BY DARREN ARONOFSKY
The second scene from Mulholland Drive (2001) by David Lynch portrays the skewed persepctive of the man on the chair and the speaker, attached to the glass, shows the authority and power the man has over the person who is going to speak from the speaker. In the third scene, from Black Swan (2010) by Darren Aronofsky, the use of the same skewed perspective portrays isolation the subject at the foreground has towards the group of ballet dancers at the background, adding to the narrative about a dedicated ballet dancer who spirals into madness in order to master her craft as the both the White Swan and the Black Swan in the ballet Swan Lake. In conclusion, the use of scale and placement in the crafting of the Mise-en-Scene as a spatial strategy in enhancing the narrative by introducing nuance can be a powerful tool in crafting architectural spaces by providing an additional layer of emotion it gives to the users. By placing objects in different layers through the use of the foreground and the background as perspective, or within the frame itself in the design of a particular scene in architecture enhances the narrative the architecture seeks to tell.
Editing: Event In “A Dialectic Approach to Film Form”, Soviet Filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein notes that the montage is the “nerve of the film”. Editing breathes life into a film, and editing has since been so vital in the making of films that it almost seems surreal watching a film without it. In Birdman (2014) by Alejandro G. Inarritu, to reflect the surreal experience of being inside the mind of a faded Hollywood actor, the entire film is made and edited as a seemingly single tracking shot. Editing condenses the runtime of the film to its most essential; editing is a tool that gives the film its function and then into its form. Editing also gives nuance and meaning to the film and condenses the film, created as raw footage, into a functioning form, becoming the narrative. Editing in film splices scenes in a temporally discontinuous manner, and this is the opposite of reality where time flows continuously. Spectators in architecture are unable to experience this filmic editing in its purest form, if applied to architecture. The closest equivalence would be through the sequential arrangement of spaces and events that tells a narrative. But that does not mean that studying the editing of film and how it derives nuance through the use of editing is not useful in architecture.
On the contrary, understanding how scenes are placed together actually tells us how better architectural spaces and elements can be put together to tell a narrative in space and time. When applied to architecture, editing can be applied to the stitching of programmes and individual spaces as a tool for transition to create nuance and progression in the mood and atmosphere of the spaces. Editing gives the film its temporal dimension. There are a variety of ways to edit a film. Montage is a technique in which a series of shots are spliced together into a sequence. The montage aims to condense information, by condensing space and time. It usually aims to suggest that time has passed in the film sequence. The Soviet Montage developed by Sergei Eisenstein in the 1920s Soviet Union uses editing of a few short shots into a sequence that derives a symbolic meaning instead. Generally, there are two types of cuts used in modern cinema, that is, the mechanical cut, where scenes are stitched together in a functional manner to create a film, and the narrative cut, where the way the shots are stitched together to derive nuance and meaning, to add to the narrative. For the sake of creating architecture, we shall focus on narrative cuts as a tool to generate and sequence spaces.
A MONTAGE OF SHOTS FROM BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925) BY SERGEI EISENSTEIN SHOWCASING THE SOVIET MONTAGE THEORY
Editing aims to transit a shot to the other in a coherent manner, often adding nuance, although using it creatively enhances the narrative. Some of the common transitional editing techniques (called cuts) include the most common jump cut, as a functional tool to move between scenes. It suggests a passage of time and is mostly functional, rather than to provide nuance. It can, however, be used creatively to suggest more than a passage of time. For example, let us picture a scene of a subject walking down a corridor. A continuous sequence, unedited, of the subject moving can be used to denote movement, but if jump cuts are introduced, especially when added in frequently, disorients the viewers as the subject moves down the corridor, indicating a particular mood, such as confusion or a feeling of terror because of the way a continuous movement down a corridor can become broken and disjointed by the editing.
In The Royal Tenebaums (2006), by Wes Anderson, a particular scene involving the character Richie shaving and attempting suicide shows the power of jump cuts as a tool to enhance the narrative. This particular scene is dramatic because the editing style is an abrupt change from the rest of the film, where the jump cuts are more spread out and smooth in transition. In this one and a half minute scene alone, there are eighteen jump cuts showing the progress of Richie shaving after both finding out that Margot, his adopted sister he has a unrequited love of, has a history of infidelity, and his very public defeat at a National tennis match.
THE ROYAL TENEBAUMS (2006) BY WES ANDERSON
The scene first jump cuts the process of shaving as Richie transforms from a bearded, headband wearing person into a cleanly shaved individual. Then, he looks straight into the camera and whispers “I’m going to kill myself tomorrow”. The scene then jumps to a single frame of when before he started shaving. It then moves to a closeup shot of his hands removing the blade from the razor, and in the next six seconds the scene transforms into a dramatic jump cut of in between him shaving and dia-
lectic scenes of Margot, his falcon and Mordecai, the fragments of his memory. Without showing the action of wrist slitting, the scene then jumps to Richie’s hands, over the sink, with blood flowing down. The choice of the dynamic, abrupt jump cuts in this scene marks a shift of editing styles from the rest of the film, hence emphasising this moment and as a turning point that is dramatic and important, creating more depth and nuance. The use of jump cut in a creative form shows the power such a technical cut can have in editing a film, and even in the editing of spaces A match cut is similar to a jump cut, but it joins two scenes that may not have relation into something that gives a new meaning. In 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Stanley Kubrick, a jump cut is used at the beginning of the film For example, parallel editing, where two different scenes happen are cut together: prehistoric
TOP TO BOTTOM: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) BY STANLEY KUBRICK BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017) BY DENIS VILLENEUVE
humans throwing a bone into the air upon discovering a black monolith, and into a space shuttle in space, similar in geometry. The juaxtaposition of these two images generate a functional timeskip in human’s evolution, as well a metaphorical one. In Blade Runner 2049, a match cut is also used when cutting from the back shot of Deckard to the same back shot of K, who are both the protagonists of the film facing a certain fate due to the similarity of the circumstances they are in. The match cut places both of these characters, in a different space, but at the same period of time together to create not only a geometrical transition, but narrative juxtaposition. A cross cut is an editing technique used to sequence action occurring at either the same time or in the same place, usually, to denote either a spatial commonality or a temporal
commonality. It is typically used for action scenes that are occuring in the same spatio-temporal frame, like a fighting sequence, to create rhythm and dynamism. It can also be used to build suspense, if two shots, one that is an action sequence and the other a non-action sequence happening at the same time, are crossed together. A parallel cut is similar to a cross cut, except that it only happens at the same time period, where the scenes edited are happening simultaneously. In architecture, the potential use of the editing techniques in film is boundless. Jean Nouvel describes architecture as something “like cinema, (existing) in a dimension of time and movement. One thinks, conceives and reads a building in terms of sequenc-
“ARCHITECTURE EXISTS, LIKE CINEMA, IN A DIMENSION OF TIME AND MOVEMENT. ONE THINKS, CONCEIVES AND READS A BUILDING IN TERMS OF SEQUENCES. TO ERECT A BUILDING IS TO PREDICT AND SEEK EFFECTS OF CONTRAST AND LINKAGE BOUND UP WITH THE SUCCESSION OF SPACES THROUGH WHICH ONE PASSES.” - JEAN NOUVEL
es. To erect a building is to predict and seek effects of contrast and linkage bound up with the succession of spaces through which one passes.” Editing can be applied to the stitching of the programmatic narrative in order to create an experiential sequence of programmes that evoke a certain emotion of its users, or in terms of the arrangement of spaces, and its spatial qualities. By making use of the Mise-enScene in crafting the poetic image in Architecture and placing these sequences of images generated, through different editing techniques a spatio-temporal form is generated, forming a coherent composition of narratives and spaces, into a functional whole, very much like a film.
Choreography: Movement Movement in cinema is defined by the carefully choreographed performance designed by the filmmaker. Very much like stage performances, movements in cinema are carefully controlled. The power of movement happens in the filmic frame, whether it is the camera controlling where the current frame is, or where the objects or moving to, movement is an important tool in telling the story. Movement adds another layer of temporal dimension to the editing, denoting a passage of time.
Movement in film denotes direction and velocity and choreographed movements in film making are categorised into two components: the camera and the subject. The movement of the camera represents the spectator’s vision; the camera represents the eyes of the spectator when they are in motion. In a static camera, the movement of the subject in the frame represents the stationary viewer as a spectator. Direction, in a static camera, is controlled by the movement of objects in the screen space. There are three axes of character movement in film, left to right, up to down, and foreground to background.
“...BODIES NOT ONLY MOVE IN, BUT GENERATE SPACE PRODUCED BY AND THROUGH THEIR MOVEMENTS.” BERNARD TSCHUMI
Lateral character movement like from left to right is more natural and positive, while right to left is more regressive and negative because of the way cultural conventions are set up, according to film critic Roger Ebert’s book How to Read a Movie.
TOP: A CHRONOPHOTO OF A WOMAN IN MOTION
Down to up movements and changes in height can indicate a shift in the power balance and dominance of the subjects in the scene. Up to down movements often denotes vulnerability, for example in typical horror movie tropes as when a characters enters a dark basement by going down a flight of stairs. Up and down movements in architecture are usually facilitated by the use of stairs, elevators or escala-
tors. Down to up movements usually denotes a change in privacy. Movement from foreground to background emphasises the action of movement due to the scale changes of the subject in motion on the screen. This can denote the scale of the setting in terms of its distance. A moving camera equates to a person in space in motion, translated through the camera as one remains static while viewing a film. The camera takes on the viewer’s movement as they move through the filmic reality created. On the spot movements like tilt and panning symbolises a person standing still, tilting their head up or down, or turning left or right, to change the view. Such static camera movements denote changes in scenes without the use of techniques, and this is the most natural, and humanistic movement we see in film, because of how it imitates human movement.
The shaky camera movement, as a result of using a handheld camera, instead of using devices such as a dolly to stabilise shots, also present a more humanistic approach to film. In reality, when bodies move, the view is often not smooth, due to movement. The shaky camera technique can suggest a certain unchoreographed feeling of reality, immersing the viewer into the film almost as if the act is played out in front of them. The shaky camera can also be used in a completely different direction, to suggest anxiety and instability, adding a layer of surrealism. It has been a trend to make use of the shaky camera found footage style some horror films due to the tension instability it creates.
LEFT: ANTICHRIST (2009) LARS VON TRIER
In Melancholia by Lars Von Trier, the depression and frantic of the protagonist in the wedding scene is manifested in its shaky camera, almost making viewers nauseous.
Understanding that movement in film is solely about the position of bodies in space and how and where the body looks at, through the camera, and this is already a fundamentally different way of how movement is designed in architecture. Benard Tschumi describes movement in architecture as “...bodies not only move in, but generate space produced by and through their movements. Movements of dance, sport and war are the intrusions of events into architectural spaces. At the limit, these events become scenarios or program... independent but inseparable from the spaces that enclose them�.
BLACK SWAN (2010) BY DARREN ARONOFSKY
“...BODIES NOT ONLY MOVE IN, BUT GENERATE SPACE PRODUCED BY AND THROUGH THEIR MOVEMENTS.” BERNARD TSCHUMI If we could incorporate the idea of choreographing movement in film as design technique in architectural space, as opposed to the more conventional idea of circulation as movement, it could potentially be more useful in creating experiential and sensorial spaces. By using the movement of bodies as an orchestrator of space, could we create architecture? What kind of architecture could we create?
Perhaps the most important elements used in the crafting of a scene are light and sound. Film is, essentially, an audiovisual object, and the film is generally experienced through visuals projected onto a screen and audio from a sound system, typically in a cinema. External environmental stimuli are removed in a cinema setting, creating a total immersive experience of film. Film is has the ability to control the atmosphere to a great degree, through using artificial light and post production sound editing, color grading and CGI.
“ARCHITECTURE IS NOT ABOUT FORM, IT IS ABOUT MANY OTHER THINGS... THE LIGHT AND THE USE, AND THE STRUCTURE, AND THE SHADOW, THE SMELL AND SO ON” PETER ZUMTHOR
Light and Sound: Atmosphere
The methods of control of light and sound to generate an atmosphere to depict a certain mood is infinite, and very much like architecture, it uses constructed and existing elements in the set to create an atmosphere.
TOP TO BOTTOM: FULL METAL JACKET (1987) BY STANLEY KUBRICK SKYFALL (2012) BY SAM MENDES BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017) BY DENIS VILLENEUVE
In Blade Runner 2049, the giant projection of Joi (shown left) as the protagonist K interacts with her is a literal projection onto a 24 to 30 foot tall wall. The set is then filled with mist to create the atmosphere and enhance the projection. The scene is then post processed with the brutalist buildings in the background.
The combination of practical effects along with CGI creates an incredible atmosphere that elevates the narrative. The use of technology, especially in artificial light, is uncommon in architecture, but very prevalent in art installations. Perhaps architecture can learn a thing or two from film and art installations in the use of practical effects to curate an experience, thereby elevating its spatial quality. In Full Metal Jacket (1987) by Stanley Kubrick, the beauty and brutality of war is portrayed. In a particular scene, light emitted from the burning buildings in a war zone creates a back light to the scene, rendering the moving troops into mere silhouettes. The beauty of the scene of the burning building speaks to us, in terms of cinematic beauty, while the setting and the narrative of war speaks to the context of the horrors of the Vietnam War as a hellish landscape.
KUNSTHAUS BREGENZ PETER ZUMTHOR
Lighting, the set and its materials can create different atmosphere and moods in a film, and it is difficult to just credit a single element. A beautiful scene is only created when these atmospheric elements combine with a well shot scene and a well composed Mise-en-Scene. In architecture, the atmosphere is what architects aim to create. Architect Peter Zumthor explains that “architecture is not about form, it is about many other things... the light and the use, and the structure, and the shadow, the smell and so on�. Indeed, if architecture is about creating a sensorial experience, could we then make use of filmic techniques to create such an experience? Would constructing spaces in reality through the use of filmic techniques create a sensorial space?
Conclusion The language of cinematic techniques studied and identified has potential for the translation to tools for designing architecture. Mise-en-Scene is about crafting the filmic image as space, through the elements prevalent in both cinema and architecture, scale and placement. In this filmic frame these elements can be manipulated, either as the subject or the setting, to achieve an intended spatial quality, as a means to evoke certain emotions associated with the image. Editing introduces the temporal dimension to the film, and great editing gives the film its form and tells the narrative in its most functional state, while not losing, but enhancing nuance and intention of the film itself. Editing determines the pacing of the film, hence affecting the film as an object of time.
LEFT: ARRIVAL (2016) BY DENIS VILLENEUVE
Movement as choreography as the interplay between the camera and the objects being filmed adds another additional temporal layer to the film. Movement of the camera symbolises the viewer’s perspective in the film, and humanistic camera movements, like tilting, panning and the shaky camera adds an extra layer of immersion to the film, giving the viewers a sense of reality. When stationary, cameras become spectators of the scene, where the subject and elements of the settings change. That too, is another powerful feeling, especially in architecture when we are more often than not, spectators to human activities, and even natural phenomena, in space. By understanding these different approaches and techniques to craft a film we can better understand how these techniques could be translated to the design of architecture. In the next section, we shall study specific scenes in selected films to understand how these techniques interact.
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FILMIC DESIGN BLADE RUNNER 2049
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE
Films In order to study cinematic tools for the design of spaces, we need to study film, just like how the study of architectural precedents enables one to understand similar projects. A film is never made up of a single technique, but rather a combination of techniques make up a captivating scene. In this section, we shall study scenes selected from films to under how these different techniques and tools interact and combine to create the intended effect the filmmaker whats to convey to its audience.
Extracting important techniques from different films enables us to understand the different methods that are deployed by the filmmakers, namely the director and the cinematographer, who are the architects in the construction of the filmic imagery, to explore a certain style or narrative being presented on the big screen.
BLADE RUNNER 2049 2017 SCIENCE FICTION DIRECTED BY DENIS VILLENEUVE WRITTEN BY HAMPTON FANCHER AND MICHAEL GREEN CINEMATOGRAPHY BY ROGER DEAKINS Plot A sequel to Blade Runner (1982), Blade Runner 2049 continues the story of the conflict of the replicants, who are bioengineered humans working as slaves, and humans in a post-technological, ecologically devastated Earth. Blade Runner replicant K, who works for the Los Angeles Police Department who hunts and kills the older rogue replicants, discovers a decades old secret that could lead to a war between humans and replicants. K’s discovery and investigation into this secret uncovers his real origins as a replicant and starts to question his humanity as a replicant. Analysis The selected scene of study is one of the emotional climaxes of the film, where K, the replicant, investigates a case where it eventually leads him to an orphanage, where he discovers his apparent true origin as someone who is born. Replicants are artificially made from technology and they are not classified as humans because they are not born, hence are repressed due to their inability to reproduce.
K discovers his origin as a replicant who was born from another replicant, Rachael, from the previous film, and this changes the fate of replicants as a slave class. Uncovering this truth could lead to a war between humans and replicants. In this particular scene, K discovers the orphanage from his supposed ‘memories’, and decides to investigate further, leading to a dramatic revelation scene discovering an object that proves his origin as someone who is born, not made. Revelation scenes are some of the most important sequences in films, and are often sequences of power emotions. Crafting the revelation scene creates an emotional climax, making use of suspense, fear and excitement as primary emotions the filmmaker wants the audience to feel. In this particular scene, the filmmaker makes use of movement and the changes in scale of the subject, K, in the mise-en-scene to create suspense and pacing. The changes in scale and size of K’s body in the filmic frame creates a rhythm to anticipate the final reveal. K changes in scale, from taking up a tiny portion is certain scenes as he moves towards the
destination of the reveal, to the extreme closeup of his hands as he discovers the object, to the closeup of his resultant emotion. Accompanied with the ever increasing volume of the sound; from the ambient sounds in the beginning to a high pitched screech at the point of the reveal increases tension and emotion of the scene. The convoluted movement of K from the office scene to the furnace where he discovers the object further increases suspense as the viewers wait for the reveal. The lighting of the scene is often poorly lit. The effect is definitely intentional because a reveal scene is more often about the emotion and the final object of reveal rather than its surroundings. By reducing the lighting of the scene, the audience are expected to make an effort to look more closely at the scene.
By paying greater attention to the scene it allows the emotions to be further heightened due to the amount of attention being spent. This scene is also a stark contrast to the other scenes in the film, in terms of color and lighting, where they are often brightly lit by the ambient neon colors of the city. This scene is lit purely by the natural lighting of the setting. This scene is a great example of how an intense atmosphere of a reveal of something important to the entire film can be crafted only through the mise-en-scene, movement, light and sound. The architectural space of the setting did not matter as much, and the scene emphasises this point it by the poor lighting. Perhaps designing an experiential space is not about crafting the architecture, but the atmosphere through movement and mise-en-scene, and the use of light and sound further compliments its entire mood that is being conveyed to the audience.
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE 2000 ROMANCE DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY WONG KAR WAI
Plot In the Mood for Love is a romantic Hong Kong film about the idea of love in a socially repressive 1960s Hong Kong. The film is about a man, Mr. Chow, and a woman, Su, who are neighbours in the same apartment leasing a unit in a post war Hong Kong, discovering that their respective spouses are in an extramarital affair and them coping with the truth. The two of them slowly develop feelings towards each other, which was eventually unfulfilled because of the pressures of tradition and the idea of marriage in the 1960s. Analysis The way the film is made is obsessive. There are constant mise-enscene being made through filming the scenes in a frame created by its surroundings, within the filmic frame itself. Elements of the Hong Kong apartment typology and its tight corridor spaces add to the feeling of social oppression. This same particular style of the mise-en-scene, along with repeats of the same scenes, only occurring in different times, and music, adds to the ‘timelessness’ of the entire film.
Both of the characters are living in a kind of personal hell from not being able to requite their love to each other or get out of their unhappy marriage, and this lack of an ability for the audience to determine how long each scene has passed or when it occurred adds to the entire helplessness of it all, the feeling of being trapped. In the selected two scenes, the power of editing in particular, along with mise-en-scene, creates two different scenes that are the opposite of each other. The first scene, occurring near the beginning of the film, exemplifies the use of character movement, along with lighting and its music, to express this beautiful scene where Mr. Chow and Su meet at the stairway and the streets outside near the noodle stall where they buy noodles from. This dreamy scene about seduction from movement as both of them brush shoulders against each other is almost symphonic.
The second scene occurs near the middle of the film. Su goes to the hotel Mr. Chow has rented to write his novel away from his apartment, which Su agrees to help, in order to prevent any rumors from their socially conservative neighbours should both of them meet constantly alone. She is conflicted about her feelings on meeting him in the hotel room because it violates the societial norm, and they did not want to become their cheating spouses by conducting an extramarital affair themselves. The once innocent friendship, as a way to cope with their spouses’ cheating, has blossomed into much more than that, and Su in particular did not want to recognise this reality. The editing of the scene is a stark contrast to the previous scene mentioned. The previous scene plays with movement in an almost symphonic manner, joining different sequences that flows nicely. In the previous scene the sequences move from Su buying noodles and back up the flight of stairs at the street corner, to focus on a particular street lamp. Mr Chow then appears from the left of the frame from the street lamp to go down the flight of stairs to buy noodles. Both of them then, almost unnoticeable by the audience due to its rhythmic tempo, suddenly appear in the same frame on the stairs despite Su already leaving the noodle stall while Mr. Chow goes to the noodle stall, tells us that this particular sequence in this scene either happens at another time altogether or the editing is disjointed.
In this particular scene, however, the extreme jumpcuts of Su as she ascends and descends the staircase of the hotel, and up and down the corridor becomes obvious. The sequence jumps around many of the different spaces as Su moves in the hotel creates a change in the pacing of the entire film which is almost symphonic-like, as exemplified in the previous scene discussed. This extreme editing addes to the conflicted feelings and sympathy, as well as frustration, the audience has for Su, for her inability to recognise and accept her feelings for Mr. Chow and her indecisiveness. The sound of this scene is also the sound of Su’s high heels clicking as she runs up and down the corridor and the stairs of the hotel, as opposed to the music (Yumeji’s Theme by Shigeru Umebayashi) that provides a rhythm to the movement in the other scenes. Yumeji’s Theme is constantly used in the film as a way to show this romantic rendezvous between Su and Mr. Chow that is constantly being played out in the film. The two different scenes exemplify the techniques of editing as a way to portray certain moods in the same film by stitching sequences and movements. The diagram above tracks the movement of Su and Mr. Chow, along with the dominant lighting in each scene, moving from the foreground to the background, as a way to explain the two symphonic and dis-symphonic scenes. The first scene of the meeting at the street corner staircase cre-
ates a rhythmic movement of Su, Mr. Chow and the use of dominant lighting, accompanied with music, creates a beautiful atmosphere for both of these characters to meet, and creates a beautiful scene for the audience. The changes in lighting as a device, moving from the foreground to the background, creates different environments where the characters in the scene move, and this is important in creating a rhythm. The second scene is a discordant opposite of the first scene, joining the movement in a discontinuous manner, with Su and the dominant light changing abruptly from foreground to background, accompanied by the disjointed sound of Su’s high heels. These two scenes explain how filmic techniques can organise space and time to derive certain moods,
and along with lighting and sound design, can elevate the atmosphere of the scene. Architecturally, this can translate to the use of editing, especially in the sequence of movement, light changes and even changes to how one ‘feels’, to signify certain changes in space. Although architecture is unable to manipulate time directly as it is, the perception of time can be manipulated through movements and even lighting. As discussed previously, movement is only possible through being able to see. By playing with the use of light and dark as an agent of movement, we can actually edit movement to become discontinuous through the ability to see what is forward, and moving in accordance.
Conclusion The study of the pair of films shed light to how these filmic techniques, mise-en-scene as space, editing as the event, and movement as choreography of the characters and camera as well as elemental qualities like light and sound, interact to create a complete film form as a spatio-temporal object. Similarly, in architecture, the interction of space, event and movement creates the atmosphere the audience experiences. In the scene studied in Blade Runner 2049, the crafting of scale changes, movement, light and sound creates an intense moment, not based on space, but on these different elements.
This tells us that perhaps, not the built elements, but how different scenes in architecture and movement are crafted in architecture, contributes to the atmosphere of the space. Instead of designing a built space through plans, sections, drawings, if architecture is about the crafting of the narrative the user is in, as well as curating the particular feel of existence in that particular space, at that particular time, to evoke a certain mood through its atmosphere, by focusing on crafting this narrative, through the use of the film, which we determined, is an extremely powerful tool, as a sensorial object, would architecture become different? Would this potentially be the new language of architecture?
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PART II ARCHITECTURE IS FILM
“FORM FOLLOWS FICTION” BERNARD TSCHUMI
u ARCHITECTURE AS FILM
Architecture as a Sensorial Form Having studied the design of films in creating a sensorial experience through the study of filmic techniques, we can now get a better understanding of crafting sensorial spaces in architecture through the use of these techniques. Architecture can be a film; by crafting spaces through filmic techniques, we are better able to design architecture as spaces for sensations. How do we then craft spaces purely for sensorial stimulations then? Since film is the purest form of sensorial architecture, how do we manifest this form in the most perfect form possible in reality?
Architecture’s primary function is to shelter its inhabitants. A good functional space protect its users from the sometimes harsh realities outside, and it seeks to comfort them. Of course, architecture has since evolved from the primitive times of protecting its users from the cruel wilderness of the prehistoric times. Architecture, unlike several fields of art, has always been about both physical and emotional comfort. Architecture should always provide positive emotions to its users. Juhani Pallasmaa states, in The Architecture of Image- Existential Space in Cinema, that “The artistic value of great architecture is not in its material existence but the images and
THE WEATHER PROJECT (2001) TATE MODERN OLAFUR ELIASSON
emotions that it evokes in the observer Indeed, architecture is more than just the physical building. He also further describes the experience of architecture in Eyes of The Skin as being “multisensory; qualities of matter, space and scale are measured equally by the eye, ear, nose, skin, tongue, skeleton and muscle. Architecture strengthens the existential experience, one’s sense of being in the world, essentially giving rise to a strengthen experience of self.” Architecture should evoke beautiful, and positive emotions to its users, and strengthen their spirit.
genuous to try to craft spaces for all kinds of emotions, hence for the sake of this thesis, we shall focus on crafting architecture for pleasure.
How do we then make use of filmic techniques to craft experiential spaces? Since architecture can be about the crafting of different emotions, depending on its inherent function and programme, it will be disin-
It is hence, useful to understand how film derives pleasure in its viewers by the various techniques. Experiencing a film derives the same kind of pleasure as it is to experience spaces.
Why architecture for pleasure? Architecture for pleasure goes beyond the idea of crafting architecture for comfort and protection. Pleasure is a feeling of happiness and enjoyment, and it is an extremely powerful positive feeling. Film, as mentioned previously, is a device for entertainment; watching a film is mainly an entertainment device for pleasure.
“ARCHITECTURE STRENGTHENS THE EXISTENTIAL EXPERIENCE, ONE’S SENSE OF BEING IN THE WORLD, AND THIS IS ESSENTIALLY A STRENGTHENED EXPERIENCE OF SELF.” JUHANI PALLASMAA
Understanding the Limits of Film In order to truly understand how filmic techniques can be used in architecture, we also need to understand limits of these filmic techniques. Only by understanding such limits would we be able to translate them into techniques for designing architecture in reality. Mise-en-Scene and Sight In film, the space visible only appears on the cinematic frame, limited by its aspect ratio and the size of the screen the film is viewed on. Sound engineering of the film also allows for spatial perception. Sounds that are louder from the left as compared to the right can indicate the attention of action on the left side of the filmic frame. A film is a perfect capture of an existing condition that is created to tell a story, through how the film is made and framed, in the image, the editing and the movement. The control is immaculate, but because film is ultimately an audiovisual object, it has its limitations in reality, where the human perception goes beyond just light and sound. In real life, the human eyes are not limited by the rectangular frame of the film, but the limits of its biology. The human eye almost acts like a camera, or rather, the camera is fash-
BLADE RUNNER (1982) RIDLEY SCOTT
ioned after the human eye. The central field of vision allows for focusing on objects, while the peripheral vision provides contextual information on where the object is located, how close the object is and how big its relative size is, in space. This happens in the crafting of mise-en-scene, as discussed in the previous chapter. The diagram below investigates the biological limits of the human eye, including its range of motion and focusing distance, as well as head turning angles. Investigating these limits help us understand better how we can craft mise-en-scene through the eyes as a frame. Light creates space. Without light, space would not be visible. Our position in space would not be made known to us. Light is also the primary element of film. Film plays with light, manipulates it, enhances it, distorts it, to express a certain emotion. Similarly, in architecture, the built form ma-
nipulates, enhances and distorts light to achieve certain effects and specific use on the space. If light is what gives space, its spatial qualities, should the design of architecture begin with how eyes perceive space through light? Choreography and Movement The movement of the camera represents a person’s view as they move, or as their eyes move. A film is a perfect capture of an existing condition that is created to tell a story, through how the film is made and framed, in the image, the editing and the movement. Space is primarily felt through the eyes of the viewer, at the human eye level. The relative placement and scale of object in space, in the x, y and z axis, through the eyes determines the person’s position in space.
The combination of movement of the user in space, with the movement of their heads changing their visual perception is the only sense of presence in the space. The movement of bodies in space also determines how space can be perceived, or how people perceive space upon seeing other bodies in space, which inherently, creates space themselves. If architecture is about sensorial perception, then the movement of bodies in relation to time and space, of the viewer and the viewed is the perception of space. The diagram below also tracks the angles of movement of limbs when a person walks and runs. Designing the movement of bodies is designing spaces.
DIAGRAM STUDYING HUMAN VISION LIMITS OF EYES, HEAD MOVEMENTS AND STRIDE
This, however, does not happen in reality. Spaces and time flow continuously. If editing gives the film its meaning as well as nuance, can we then make use of editing as a technique to stitch sensations as a way to derive another layer of meaning? The perception of space, time and atmospheric qualities can be curated through editing as a technique, which will inform how the placement and flow of such perception could create even more meaning to the space. The transition from a dark to a bright space, a hot to cold area, a small to a large room, and a gentle slope to a steep staircase are examples of the use of such transition techniques to add another layer to the narrative of such spaces.
LEFT: FOREST OF LIGHT (2016) SALONE DEL MOBILE, MILAM, ITALY SOU FUJIMOTO
GERNOT BÖHME
Editing in film gives the filmic form its functional form by condensing into important information. Editing as a way of montage also adds to the quality of the film. Editing gives meaning to the stitching of several sequences and clips together. The film is inherently a discontinuous spatio-temporal object. It violates the law of space and time through editing by placing several clips that do not happen in continuous spatial and temporal sequences together.
“LIKE MUCH THAT IS IMPORTANT ABOUT BUILT SPACES, ATMOSPHERE’S ENVELOPING NATURE AS BOTH VOID AND TOTALITY IS CONSTITUTIVELY INVISIBLE BUT WE CAN PERCEIVE IT IN OTHER WAYS”
Editing and Events
Light, Sound and Beyond Light and sound are the primary elements of film. Light and sound are also primary elements in architecture. In reality, architecture and spatial perception are not just about visual, movement and sound. The atmospheric quality as a spatial experience is not only felt but the eye, but by different sensorial organs, through smell, by olfactory organs and temperature, through the skin. All of these different sensorial stimulations add to, and completes the atmospheric qualities of a space. In Atmospheric Architectures: The Aesthetics of Felt Spaces, Gernot Böhme notes that “Space, at least the space in which we are, is not something like an object. Rather, it provides a horizon, in which things and people appear and where their lives play out. Like much that is important about built spaces, atmosphere’s enveloping nature as both void and totality is constitutively invisible but we can perceive it in other ways.” Using stimuli of bodily sensations (i.e. light, heat, smell, sound) as a building material and orchestrator of spaces will be the approach we can take to craft sensorial spaces, along with the other factors mentioned previously.
Conclusion Identifying the equivalences of filmic techniques and their real life counterparts has allow us to directly translate them into tangible techniques in designing architecture in reality. They are: 1. What the eye sees is equivalent to Miseen-Scene 2. Movement of bodies as an orchestrator of spaces is equivalent to choreographed movements of the characters and camera in film 3. The stitching of events, sensations and movements is equivalent to film editing and montage 4. Going beyond light and sound in film into other sensations that can be felt by the body
We now have a greater understanding of how filmic architecture can be crafted, and it will be through these different methods, in order to achieve spaces of sensorial pleasure. In the next portion, we shall examine architecture for pleasure as a space we can potentially look to, to craft such sensorial spaces, through the use of such techniques.
Will Alsop describes the role of architects is “to be able to give the world extraordinary objects of desire, is under threat by people who see the world as a dull and uncultured place of day to day tedium and boredom. “ Indeed, architecture, just like film, seeks to entertain and inspire. Powerful are both of these medium of expression in creating an experience. Architecture, as much as it is an art form, is also a functional object, hence should not be something that is depressing and uninspired. Architecture should elevate the emotions of people and essentially, to create feelings of happiness. Architecture that is the most related to the pursuit of pleasure are places that serve no other primary function other than providing pleasure. Such architecture include amusement parks, museums, zoos and brothels. These places provide an experience;
TOP TO BOTTOM: PAINTING OF THE GREAT EXHIBITION IN THE CRYTSAL PALACE 1851 BY DAVID ROBERTS CONEY ISLAND AMUSEMENT PARK, CONEY ISLAND, NEW YORK, USA MONET GALLERY IN CHICHU ART MUSEUM TESHIMA, SETOUCHI, JAPAN
ARCHITECTURE, JUST LIKE FILM, SEEKS TO ENTERTAIN AND INSPIRE. POWERFUL ARE BOTH OF THESE MEDIUM OF EXPRESSION IN CREATING AN EXPERIENCE.
Architecture for Pleasure
they serve as places for pleasure as much as it is to conserve wildlife, in zoos, or the preservation of artworks, in museums. These architecture serve as a form of escapism for people from their hectic, busy lives, and they are also places of emotional healing, a break from the hectic daily routine, and it is not surprise that architecture for pleasure, such as amusement parks and museums, are often targets for tourism. Through the architectural and experiential design, these places seek to provide maximum entertainment and pleasure it can to its users. It is therefore important to look to these places to understand the potential film has and its myriad of tools in creating an experience, and in this case, the experience of pleasure.
MARIE ANTOINETTE (2006) BY SOFIA COPPOLA
Since such architectural spaces are about the experience, it will be appropriate to apply filmic techniques identified previously in the design of such spaces. Film, as mentioned previously, is about the curation of the reality through the manipulation of spatial, temporal elements and its atmospheric qualities. Watching a film is to find pleasure through entertainment, be it a horror film or comedy.
In the next few sections we shall investigate the architecture made for the pursuit of pleasure; architecture for hedonism, and the cinematic qualities that they are associated with.
u ARCHITECTURE OF HEDONISM HEDONISM NOUN THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE; SENSUAL SELF-INDULGENCE. SYNONYMS: SELF-INDULGENCE, INDULGENCE, PURSUIT OF PLEASURE, PLEASURE-SEEKING, LOTUS-EATING, EPICUREANISM, EPICURISM, SELF-GRATIFICATION
Architecture of Hedonism Hedonist architecture are places purely about the pursuit of pleasure. The creation of the experience is hence extremely important in these spaces. For example, in amusement parks, thrill and excitement are the primary pleasure elements. It is hence useful to study several hedonist architecture precedents to understand how the experience of pleasure in these architecture are designed. There will be a variety in examples in the precedents being studied, from paper architecture, to exhibitions to actual built designs and in terms of programmatic functions and the experience of pleasure.
These precedents are: 1) Teshima Art Museum by Ryue Nishizawa 2) Casa Palestra by OMA 3) Paris Zoological Park by Bernard Tschumi For these precedents, we shall investiage the filmic qualities these architecture for pleasure holds as the three techniques we studied in the previous sections, they are space as mise-enscene, event as editing, movement as choreography, and its atmospheric qualities.
TESHIMA ART MUSEUM 2010 RYUE NISHIZAWA / REI NAITO TESHIMA, KAWAGA, JAPAN ART MUSEUM
The Teshima Art Museum , designed by Ryue Nishizawa, featuring a single artwork by Rei Naito, is situated on Teshima island, in the Seto Inland Sea, one of the many islands dedicated to art run by the Benesse Corporation dedicated to education and the arts. The museum features a single art work by Rei Naito, called “Matrix�, which is about, simply put, the movement of water on the concrete surface. Water droplets emerge from the concrete floor and moves, merging into puddles. The understated beauty of the movement of the water becomes apparent. The architecture of the museum itself is a delight. The cinematic atmo-
sphere it creates with the 40 by 60 metres freestanding droplet shaped shell opens up to the surrounding nature through two openings at different parts of the structure. The openings allow the natural elements, like sunlight, rain, insects and dead leaves into the museum. This allows the museum to be infinitely different at different times of the day and the year; the atmospheric qualities of the space is constantly changed and affected by the environment.
TOP: TESHIMA ART MUSEUM FROM OUTSIDE
Cinematically, we can break down the entire composition of space into its elements, of space as mise-enscene, the event as editing, and movement as choreography, and the use of elements to add to its atmospheric qualities.
The composition of the filmic image is definitely one of the most important tool in designing the space here. Nishizawa designed the freestanding structure so that no views would be obstructed by any columns. The unrestricted views, combined with the curvature of the concrete; that is white but also has the texture of concrete, revealed through lighting, gives off a rather primitive feel to the space. The openings in the concrete shell is the subject of the entire space, and it brings a contrast to the space by exposing the museum to nature. The opening frames the views of nature, almost like a cinema, where the visitors can watch nature.
The editing of the space as the sequencing of events gives the visitors complete freedom, depending on what and where they want to do or see in the space. Under the shell, visitors can act as spectators to the space, viewing the movement of people who are in the space, or to watch the movement of the water on the ground. The dynamic changes as the visitor moves to the openings, where the sunlight hits the space. Here, the viewer becomes the viewed, as the sunlight demarcates the space where the ‘stage’ and where the viewing space is. The dynamic changes in the sequencing of events as a viewer becomes viewed by other visitors creates different events within the space, through the use of sunlight as a creator of space. In rain, the opening becomes sort of an im-
penetrable obstacle, where the rain becomes the performance. The temporal dimension here is introduced by changes in weather and seasons. The movement in space of the visitors is determined by the movement of water on the ground. The water droplets emitted by the concrete ground, the artwork by Rei Naito, moves in a predetermined, yet within a degree of unpredictability. Visitors are told not to step on the water, and hence they have to change their movements in space by either stepping over the water or avoiding it altogether. This undetermined dance between the visitors and the water creates beautiful movements in the space, as visitors move from one point to the other. Some visitors also lie down on the ground to watch the nature introduced into the space through the openings. The eventual composition of the space is cinematic. Powerful feelings of joy, calmness and beauty are evoked, through the interaction of the understated natural elements like sunlight and water and the structure itself. Very much like a film, although the narrative of the space is easy enough to explain to someone, the feeling of being in it is difficult to put into words. Only by experiencing the space would its atmospheric qualities be revealed. PREVIOUS: OPENINGS IN TESHIMA ART MUSEUM PEOPLE IN SPACE FLOORPLAN OF TESHIMA ART MUSEUM
TOP: OPENINGS IN TESHIMA ART MUSEUM
Understanding the Teshima Art Museum as a cinematic object of pleasure allows us to understand how cinematic techniques may be used in the crafting of such spaces. Here, space, movement and events are determined by natural elements and its interaction with the architecture itself, and along with the undetermined movement of visitors, create endless possibilities within the space itself.
CASA PALESTRA 1985 - 1986 OMA MILAN ITALY EXHIBITION
“In the beginning of the 1980s modern architecture was always presented as lifeless, puritanical, empty and uninhabited. It has always been our intuition however, that modern architecture is in itself a hedonistic movement, that its severity, abstraction and rigor are in fact plots to create the most provocative settings for the experiment that is modern life. Our presentation was to illustrate this point by bending the Barcelona Pavilion and systematically develop a project of its all human
PERFORMANCE IN CASA PALESTA (1985)
occupancy related to physical culture in the widest possible sense of the word. The house will be both desecrated and inaugurated, and show its perfect appropriateness for even the most suggestive aspects of contemporary culture. Action suggested by projection and light-effects and an abstract soundtrack of the human voice – somewhere in the ambiguous zone between exercise and sexual pleasure – will complete this spectacle, whose aim is to shock people into an awareness of the possible ‘hidden’ dimensions of modern architecture.”
Casa Palestra is about the desecration of the Barcelona Pavilion, designed by Mies van der Rohe, completed in 1929. The Barcelona Pavilion is one of the most iconic modernist buildings in the world, and by bending its floorplan and introducing the idea of the event and movement through the introduction of a performance of someone doing exercise in the pavilion.
Rem Koolhas believed that modern architecture in the 1980s was cold and lifeless, and decided to go against the norm by introducing activity into the deformed Bercelona Pavilion, as a statement about modern architecture being a hedonistic endeavor, where architects should be creating spaces where daily activities and work can take place, rather as just a kind of architectural statement. The addition of light projections and effects, smells and the sound of an abstracted human voice that sounds either it is about exercising or sex activates the otherwise ‘lifeless’ modern architectural space. The introduction of the event through different sensorial elements of sight, sound and smell transform the space into a cinematic experience. Architecture is nev-
er about the space alone, but rather the movement and activities that happen in it. Koolhaas, known for his interest in using filmic techniques in architecture, has made the idea of the event in architecture apparent, and new nuance to the space is created. The miseen-scene is created through the activity of the woman exercising, along with the light projections, and the atmopshere generated by light, sound and smell transforms the space into something sensual, almost film-like.
LEFT TO RIGHT: FLOORPLAN OF CASA PALESTRA ACTIVITIES WITHIN CASA PALESTRA
PARIS ZOOLOGICAL PARK 2014 BERNARD TSCHUMI + VERONIQUE DESCHARRIERES PARIS, FRANCE ZOO
MISE-EN-SCENE OF VARIOUS BIOZONES IN PARIS ZOOLOGICAL PARK
Paris Zoological Park makes use of cinematic techniques in creating pleasure through the design of the zoological landscape. The zoo contains five bio-regions of Patagonia, the Sudanese Sahel, Europe, Guyana and Madagascar, which are arranged as a single four kilometre “tracking shot”, through the movement of users. The mise-en-scene is constantly referenced anywhere in the zoo and its exhibitions to create a dramatic experience. Bernard Tschumi makes use of the concepts of composition and framing of the foreground and the background to guide the eyes of the user into immersing into an unique cinematic experience. Users move through different exhibits, which are from all over the world, of different seasons and of
different biomes, showcasing an amalgation of the concept of the temporal dimension, and with the crafted miseen-scene and careful framing, forms the spatio-temporal form Tschumi has put forward in Architecture and Disjunction, heterotopic and film-like. Here, space, event and movement are examplified by the careful crafting of the scene, the change of event as the different biomes, choreographed movement through the layout of the exhibition. The atmosphere is created by the carefully selected flora and fauna of
the different bio-zones that are available in the zoo, through changing the density of plants, color and naturally occuring materials specific to each region. This atmosphere separates each bio-zone from each other by referencing its natural environment, allowing the users to be immersed in a different bio-zone. Objects that naturally exist, such as boulders, in their natural environments are not directly imitated, but given an architectural, almost sculptural, quality to it.
MISE-EN-SCENE OF VARIOUS BIOZONES IN PARIS ZOOLOGICAL PARK
The Paris Zoological Park is a good example of designing architecture for pleasure, through the use of cinematic techniques, such as framing space and what the eye sees using the mise-en-scene, event through the different biomes and movement through a well crafted circulation that aims to create an experience moving from exhibit to exhibit. NEXT PAGE: SECTIONAL PLANS
Conclusion The study of the architecture of pleasure uncovers the careful crafting of spaces to derive different feelings of pleasure. Teshima Art Museum makes use of the infinite space as an orchestrator for the movement of bodies, water and light to create spaces of exceptional beauty, that changes in time, a way to unite with nature as an escape form of escape. Casa Palestra makes use of bodies in motion, as well as artificial elements of light, projection, smells and sound to uncover the hedonism of space as a shell for activities to occur, flipping the narrative of modernist architecture as lifeless. Paris Zoological Park is cinematically designed in its roots, carefully crafted using techniques of mise-enscene to generate the movement of bodies within the park, and through editing techniques to link various different biomes together in a seamless, coherent experience, very much like a filmic narrative.
The different ways these architecture craft spaces through techniques, blatantly cinematic or not, reveals to us that building elements itself, almost does not matter in designing spaces, but it is about what the eye sees, how the body moves, and how sensations are edited together for coherence, juxtaposition or in general, as a narrative. This is a new language of architecture. No longer is architecture bound by building elements, but by bodies in space and their perception. If so, filmic techniques identified, can be powerful tools in this new language of architecture. What would this new architecture look like?
u
HEDONISM IN TOKYO TOKYO, 東京都 JAPAN" CAPITAL 35°41N 139°41E 23 WARDS
Tokyo: A City of Entertainment Tokyo is a city of dualities, where modernity and tradition collide in the most fascinating ways. From temples to skyscrapers, from parks to themed restaurants, Tokyo is a city half made up of work, and the other half of pleasure. The dedication of both work and play in Tokyo has sprouted some of the most interesting cultures. In this section, we shall explore the idea of pleasure in Tokyo, and identify architecture and/or locations in Tokyo that is closely related to our topic of designing architecture for pleasure through filmic techniques. Through analysing the different locations in Tokyo, we will also aim to seek out a site for design.
The identified districts where the entertainment sector is prevalent are Ueno, Asakusa, Shibuya, Shinjuku and Roppongi. These different districts specialise in different forms of entertainment, from a more cultural one like Ueno and Asakusa, to more adult oriented ones like Roppongi and Shibuya. The spaces of pleasure in Tokyo are varied and all fascinating, but we shall focus on three districts where each of them portray different typology, or typologies of entertainment. They are Ueno, Asakusa and Roppongi. Through studying these districts we can then shed light on potentials where a design, based on cinematic tools, can be used to compliment, or even enhance the architecture for pleasure.
UENO ASAKUSA SHINJUKU SHIBUYA ROPPONGI
GOOGLE EARTH MAP OF INNER TOKYO
DISTRICTS IN TOKYO WITH PROMINENT ENTERTAINMENT SECTORS
Ueno Ueno is a district in the Taito Ward, which is located the Northeastern side of Tokyo City. Ueno is important and famous for Ueno Park, which holds many of Tokyo’s most important cultural and entertainment sites, such as the Tokyo National Museum, Ueno Zoo and National Museum of Western Art. The Ueno Park was established in 1873 during the Meiji Period by the Emperor of Japan as a popular entertainment space for the recreation and the enjoyment of the Japanese public. In Januaray 1873, the Dajo-Kan, also known as the Great Council of State, issued a notice establishing Ueno Park as a public park noting that “in prefectures including Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, there are places of historic interest, scenic beauty, and recreation and relaxation where people can visit and enjoy themselves”. Ueno Park is home to some 8800 trees, including the Japanese Cherry, and a small lake known as the Shinobazu Pond. Ueno Park is hence a prime spot for hanami, which is ‘flower viewing’ in Japanese, during the spring period where cherry blossoms bloom. Japanese typically hold sakura viewing parties underneath cherry blosson trees where they bring food and have a picnic. The tradition of hanami is still being practiced today. The transformation of Ueno Park during the spring season turns Ueno Park into the center of traditional Japanese recreation. Besides being a park, Ueno Park is also home to a large number of museums, such as The Tokyo National Museum, established in 1872, the National Museum of Nature and Science, as well as National Museum of Western Art, founded in 1959 from the art collection of Matsukata Kojiro. Le Corbusier designed the museum. The Ueno Zoo can also be found in the park, which is the oldest zoo in Japan. The inclusive and transformative properties of the Ueno Park, both as a park and a cultural space, allows for important cultural spaces to be used as spaces for pleasure and entertainment.
TOP TO BOTTOM: TOKYO METROPOLITIAN ART MUSEUM TOKYO BUNKA KAIKAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WESTERN ART TOKYO NATIONAL MUSEUM HANAMI AT UENO PARK IN SPRING
TOKYO NATIONAL MUSEUM
TOKYO METROPOLITAN ART MUSEUM
UENO ZOO NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WESTERN ART
TOKYO BUNKA KAIKAN
JR UENO STATION
UENO ROYAL MUSEUM SHINOBAZUNO POND AMEYA YOKOCHO SHITAMACHI MUSEUM
SITES OF CULTURAL ENTERTAINMENT IN UENO PARK
Asakusa Asakusa is a district in Taito. Asakusa is a popular tourist district for those seeking for the traditional side of Tokyo. Asakusa is famous for Senso-ji, a Buddhist temple, and it is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Tokyo. Asakusa used to be an entertainment district, started during the Edo Period in Japan, due to its proximity to Kuramae, which is a district of rice storehouses. The owners of these storehouses became rich from rice trading and as a result, cinemas, geisha houses and kabuki theatres began to appear in Asakusa, as a destination for the rich storehouse keepers. The rokku, or the ‘Sixth District’ was famous and popular among the locals for as a theatre district, where famous cinemas such as the Denkikan, can be found. The Denkikan was the first movie theatre in Japan, before it finally closed in 1976. During World War II, Asakusa was heavily damaged by US bombing, particularly the fireboming of Tokyo in 10 March 1945. Although the area was rebuilt after the war, the charm of Asakusa as the premier entertainment district of Tokyo is gone, and taken over by the newer districts, such as Shinjuku and Roppongi. Asakusa today is one of the major tourist destinations in Tokyo, especially for Sensoji, for those who are seeking a more traditional side of Japanese culture. In Asakusa there are still surviving theatres specialising in traditional entertainment, like Kabuki, Japanese drum and other music performances. Sanja Matsuri, also known as the Three Shrine Festival, happens in Asakusa in May, to commemorate the founder of Sensoji Shrine. The three day festival transforms Asakusa into a vibrant and crowded area, attended by at least 1.5 to 2 million people over the course of the festival. Asakusa’s rich culture with its traditional entertainment district, while on the decline, remains one of Tokyo’s most valuable cultural relic and heritage of her past.
TOP TO BOTTOM: NAKAMISE STREET HANAYASHIKU AMUSEMENT PARK KABUKI PERFORMANCE IN ASAKUSA SANJA MATSURI
EDO DOWNTOWN TRADITIONAL CRAFTS CENTER UENO ROYAL MUSEUM HANAYASHIKI AMUSEMENT PARK SENSOJI COMPLEX ASAKUSA MOKUBAKAN TAISHUUGEKIJOU ASAKUSA ENGEI HALL
NAKAMISE SHOPPING STREET SUMIDA PARK
SUMIDA RIVER
SITES OF CULTURAL ENTERTAINMENT IN ASAKUSA
Roppongi Roppongi is an affluent area in Minato district of Tokyo, popular for its nightclub entertainment scene. Roppongi contains numerous bars, nightclubs, stripclubs and cabarets, and it is favored by the expatriate community because of its history as a loation for US military installations. In the past, Roppongi became popular in the late 1960s for its disco scene, which attracted many of the entertainment elites in Tokyo. Roppongi today is defined by two extremes: work and play. In the day businessmen and workers dominate Roppongi as a hip business district, where large companies like Yahoo!, Ferrari and The Pokemon Company have their headquarters in Roppongi Hill. At night, the area transforms into a space of hedonism, where the nightlife becomes vibrant and alive.
TOP TO BOTTOM: ROPPONGI CHOME SALARYMEN SMOKING A NIGHTCLUB IN ROPPONGI
THE NATIONAL ART CENTER
ROPPONGI HILLS TV ASAHI ZEPP BLUE THEATER ROPPONGI
SITES OF INTEREST IN ROPPONGI
ASAKUSA DISTRICT OF DUALITIES
Because of the intersection of the rich cultural identity of Asakusa as a traditional entertainment district of the yesteryears and a major modern cultural tourist attraction, situated in a hypermodern city of the twenty-first century of Tokyo, it will be interesting to explore the potential of designing architecture for pleasure through modern cinematic techniques. Hence, the area of study would be set in Asakusa to ultimately, identify a site for a relevant entertainment programme. In the next section, we shall understand Asakusa more in depth as a traditional and modern entertainment district of Tokyo.
u TOKYO IS A FILM: DESIGN POTENTIAL
Reimagining Traditional Entertainment Having identified the area in Tokyo where the new design for cinematic architecture can be, we shall now focus the specific programme of entertainment to design for.
venues like community theatres, movie theatres and an amusement park. These establishments are functioning relics of Japan’s past devices for pleasure.
Asakusa has been and still is, one of the most important sites for cultural entertainment in the ever changing, ever modernising Japan. Asakusa is a reminder of the Tokyo of the past, with its many cultural sites like Sensoji Shrine, and several of traditional entertainment establishments that still exist in modern Tokyo. Such establishments, whom many have closed over the decades as Asakusa ceases to be the premier entertainment district of Tokyo due to the rise of new entertainment districts like Roppongi and Shinjuku, still has some surviving theatres dedicated to traditional Japanese arts, such as Kabukizas, as well as contemporary entertainment
Perhaps one of the most enduring forms of entertainment from ancient Japan to today is the Kabuki. It is also a fascinating art form, especially with its parallels to the cinema. As such, the thesis will focus on Kabuki as a form of entertainment where we can make use of cinematic methods to redesign the experience of a kabuki performance as well as the architecture these performances will reside in. By making use of modern filmic techniques, Kabuki will be given a more modern form, and the potential to become a new Japanese entertainment form, imbued with elements of the past, present and the future.
The Kabuki is one of the many traditional Japanese performances. Kabuki is a classical dance drama consisting of a combination of singing, dancing and storytelling, with the dramatism of the narrative and the elaborate costumes and outfits of its performers. Kabuki is an ancient art. It began in 1603 when a miko, which is a Japanese shrine maiden, began performing a new style of performance in Kyoto, and in the 17th Century, this new performance style became popular after the art was performed in front of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the ruler of Feudal Japan. Kabuki was considered a form of popular entertainment in Japan in the past, almost like pop culture. The performance art become more high brow as they tried to appealed more to the upper class. After World War II, the influx of Western ideas and styles meant that Kabuki was no longer the popular entertainment it once was. Kabuki, along with other western imported entertainment, like movie theatres, stood side to side in the rokku district of Asakusa. Kabuki today is enjoyed by the older generation, as well as curious tourists looking for the traditional side of Japan. Some of these smaller Kabuki theatres still exist in Asakusa. The National Theatre of Japan in Chiyoda District and Kabuki-za in Ginza, Chuo District holds the largest kabuki performances in Tokyo.
KABUKI \ 歌舞伎 CLASSIC JAPANESE DANCE DRAMA KA (SING) 歌BU (DANCE) -舞 KI (SKILL) -伎
Kabuki
Play Structure Kabuki, unlike the western theatres, often performed as a full day program. Audiences devote a full day to attending a kabuki play. Audiences may however choose to attend particular acts in the whole play, which is broken up into five acts. The concept of ‘jo-ha-kyu’, dictates the pacing of the play, states that plays should start slow, speed up, and end quickly in a dramatic conclusion. Jo in ‘jo-ha-kyu’ refers to a slow opening to introduce the audience to the characters, and the narrative. The next three acts, or ha, speeds the events up, usually as the body of the play, with great dra-
mas, tragedies and battles. The play then ends quickly in a climatic ending of kyu, bringing the play to a satisfying conclusion. There are three major categories of kabuki being played, the ‘Jidaimono’, which are Pre-Sengoku period pieces, ‘Sewamono’, or post-Sengoku or domestic pieces, and ‘Shosagoto’, which are dance pieces. One of the most important elements of kabuki is the ‘mie’, where the performer holds a pose to establish their character in the play. The mie draws attention to an important or powerful scene of the play. The actor,
at the mie pose, will open their eyes as wide as possible, and if they are angry, they will cross their eyes. Emotions, and the nature of the characters are expressed through colors, makeup and costume. Colorful costumes often convey joy and comedy, while darker and more muted colors convey a sense of severity. The makeup of kabuki actors also define their characters. Painted facial lines, also known as the kumadori, and their colors represent different characters. Darker colors portray villany, green the supernatural and purple nobility.
The Kabuki is more about portraying moments of beauty as compared to the realism of the play. Dialogue, acting and sets are exaggerated as a way to incite a dramatic presence, very much unlike modern entertainment of subtlety and realism. Stage Design The early kabuki stage is modelled after the Noh theatre, another traditional Japanese performance art. The main stage, known as the hon butai, is located to the right of the audience, and is about 8 metres square. One of the most important features of the kabuki stage is the hanamichi, also known as the flower path, which is a raised passageway leading from the back of the theatre to the left corner of the stage. The hanamichi is an entrance pathway onto the main stage,
PREVIOUS: THE JULY 1858 PRODUCTION OF SHIBARAKU IN EDO (1850S) TOYOKUNI UTAGAWA III TOP TO BOTTOM: A TYPICAL KABUKI PLAY SATORI STUDIO KABUKI PERFORMANCE NEXT: KABUKI STAGE LAYOUT
or even a performance space. It functions to emphasise entrances and exits. When actors enter or leave the stage, they will stop at a point on the hanamichi known as the shichi-san, or seven-three. It is seven tenth the length of the hanamichi. They will often stop to pose, speak or dance, as an emphasis. The stage design is almost cinematic in the way that it has several devices and mechanisms for the dramatic entrances and exits of characters. The mawari butai, which is a revolving stage, is used to change locations or
even the view of the audience. The effect of the revolving stage has been noted by historians as ““ the same as that produced by the fade-out and fade-in of film techniques”. The kabuki also uses curtains as a stage device, as a reveal, known as furiotoshi. The large pale blue curtain, asagimaku, drops down to reveal whatever is behind the curtain, when two wooden clappers are struck. This has also been compared to a cut in the movie, like an editing technique. The use of this reveal scene signifies to the audience that an important scene is about to happen.
花道 Hanamichi (Elevated runway)
下座 Geza (Box for Musicians)
スッポン Suppon (Trapdoor on the hanamichi)
回り舞台 Mawaributai( Revolving stage)
花 (
Seatin
花道 Hanamichi (Elevated runway)
ngs
セリ Seri (Trapdoor)
チョボ床 Choboyuka (Box for the chorus)
仮花道 Karihanamichi (Auxiliary elevated runway)
The kabuki is also known for its elaborate stage effects. The stage has been designed to include several mechanisms, such as the seri, which is a trapdoor to allow actors to appear and disappear. Conclusion Kabuki has been described by many as a sensorial oriented theatre, as compared to a more intellectual Western one. Because of the cinematic qualities associated with kabuki as a traditional Japanese art, and the disappearing influence of kabuki as an entertainment form in contemporary times, the design aims to reimagine kabuki as a modern entertainment form by applying archicinematic techniques in designing the experience, form of kabuki as a play, including
LEFT TO RIGHT: OKUNI KABUKI-ZU BYOBU (1600S) KYOTO NATIONAL MUSEUM KABUKI STAGE
Site
the stage design, as well as the introduction of a new architectural form to serve as the centre for the new national kabuki theatre. The structure of the kabuki will be reimagined, and be used to inspired the form and function of spaces, alongside the cinematic ones identified in the previous chapters. The clash of modern cinematic techniques and traditional kabuki elements will form a new type of performance theatre, dedicated to the performance of traditional arts. The design aims to reestablish kabuki as a modern entertainment form, through sensorial design techniques identified in film, as well as the architecture it shall inhabit. The design of spaces shall dictate the new kabuki form, through the identified cinematic techniques of crafting spaces.
Asakusa is a highly built up area, and with many of the culturally important architecture in the district, it is difficult to identify a site that will respect the history and culture of the place. Instead of selecting an already built site, we shall look towards opposite the Sumida River, in Sumida Park. Sumida Park is a public park, where Cherry Blossoms can be seen in spring. Sumida Park is situated in between the old and the new; the traditional area of Asakusa on its left, and the Tokyo Skytree, the tallest structure in Japan. Sumida Park’s transformative properties as a park due to seasonal changes as well as being beside the Sumida River makes it a fascinating location for the proposed programme. The seasonal transformation can provide certain cinematic and atmospheric elements of change to the new Kabuki form being manifested by the cinematic techniques of design.
The main access to Sumida Park are from Asakusa Station opposite the river, or from the Tokyo Skytree Station. Both stations are within walking distances of the park. Sumida Park is a popular spot for hanami as well as general leisure activities. It contains a pond and playgrounds for children. Because of it being a park and also a space of leisure, Sumida Park is an appropriate site for the design of the new Kabuki Theatre. Methodology The design of the new kabuki Theatre will be done in accordance to the filmic techniques and principals identified in the previous chapters. They are: 1. What the eye sees as Mise-enScene 2. Movement of bodies as an orchestrator of spaces 3. The stitching of events, sensations and movements as editing 4. Use of sensory stimulations as primary building elements of architecture (light, sound, temperature)
SITE STUDY OF SUMIDA PARK
The design project would be tackled in three scales: the human scale, stage scale and building scale. The human scale will be the main scale we would work in, referring to what the bodies see, sense and how it moves, to generate spaces. The human scale will inform the stage design, as a generator of the new kabuki experience between the audience and the actors. The use of sensorial building elements would be incorporated into the design of the stage. Finally, the building scale would form the largest scale for this design project, which would take into account the placing of spaces, programmes, circulation and the building envelope in the coherent manner, informed by both the human and stage scale.
500m
250m
306m
171 m
250m
500m TOKYO SKYTREE とうきょうスカイツリー
TOKYO SKYTREE STATION とうきょうスカイツリー駅
SUMIDA RIVER 隅田川
SUMIDA PARK 隅田公園
ASAKUSA STATION 浅草駅
SENSOJI 浅草寺
1
2 SENSOJI
SUMIDA PARK
SUMIDA RIVER
USHIJIMA SHRINE
ASAKUSA STATION SUMIDA PARK
TOKYO SKYTREE
SITE STUDY OF SUMIDA PARK
3
1
2 4 3
4
The design will also take into consideration special circumstances of our site. Sumida Park transforms in terms of seasons, weather and even day and night. Such transformations provide an additional layer in which the building and its experiential spaces, such as hanami during the spring season, periodic snow in winter, rain, lighting conditions of the day versus the night and seasonal kabuki plays.
The design process shall follow filmmaking processes, such as development, narrative crafting, preproduction like storyboarding and setting up of location, and then to the ‘filming’ part which is the design process. The proposed programmes in the new theatre includes the usual auxiliary programmes of a theatre, along with five different stage spaces where the five different acts of a Kabuki play would occur, due to the difference in pacing, and narratives of each act. Each space will provide the Kabuki act with the experiential space it requires. Since a full length Kabuki play is hours long, during intermissions, the audience would also be provided with spaces for rest and recreation.
Plan for Term 10 At the end of the next term, the production shall include: 1) Information from this booklet along with updates and improvements 2) Scene study diagrams of selected Kabuki Plays 3) Narrative and storyboarding diagrams in human, stage and building scale as a method to conceive spaces 4) Plans, sections, elevations 5) A film to document the design through the use of softwares like C4D, Maya and physical model 6) Other associated details
Week -1: Site visit: Documentation of site Transformations in a day Week 1-3: Study of Specific Kabuki Plays, and mapping movements and emotions, through filmic techniques identified Week 3: Designating programmes, setting up of architectural narratives Week 4: Storyboarding of Mise-enScene, crafting of scenes, movements, sensations Week 5-9: Design Development Week 10-13: Production Week 14: Presentation
END
uBibliography Giuliana Bruno, Atlas of emotion : journeys in art, architecture, and film, Verso, 2002. Juhani Pallasmaa , The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema, Building Information Limited, 2001. David Bordwell, Film Art: An Introduction 11th Edition, McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2016. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, Presses Universitaires de France, 1964 David B. Clarke, The Cinematic City, Routledge, 1997. Graham Cairns, The Architecture of the Screen: Essays in Cinematographic Space, University of Chicago Press, 2013. Bernard Tschumi, The Manhattan Transcripts, Wiley, 1994 Bernard Tschumi, Architecture and Disjunction, MIT Press, 1994 Andrew Webber, Cities In Transition: The Moving Image and the Modern Metropolis, Wallflower Press, 2007 Michael Kawa, Agencies of the Frame: Tectonic Strategies in Cinema and Architecture, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011 Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin- Architecture and the Senses, Wiley, 1996 Sergei Eisenstein, Towards a Theory of Montage, I.B. Tauris, 2010. Juhani Pallasmaa, Space, place and atmosphere: Emotion and Peripherical Perception in Architectural Experience, 2014 Ernst, Earle. The Kabuki Theatre. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1974. Ernst and Peter Neufert, Architectural Standard, Third Edition
uReferences Amy Frearson, Peter Zumthor at the Royal Gold Medal Lecture 2013, Dezeen, Accessed 21 April 2018 https://www.dezeen.com/2013/02/06/peter-zumthor-at-the-royal-gold-medal-lecture-2013/ Bill Boyle, Establishing Atmosphere with the Visual Mindscape, Script Magazine, Accessed 21 April 2018 http://www.scriptmag.com/features/establishing-atmosphere-visual-mindscape Josh Ovenden, Joshua B. Ovenden- Unit 2, Accessed 21 April 2018 https://joshovenden.wordpress.com/2015/10/07/casa-palestra/ OMA, Casa Palestra, OMA, Accessed 21 April 2018 http://oma.eu/projects/casa-palestra Alan Kostrencic, Architecture of Pleasure, Oris Magazine, Accessed 21 April 2018 http://www.oris.hr/en/oris-magazine/overview-of-articles/[104]architecture-of-pleasure,2371. html Patricia Martin, Is Phenomenology in Architecture Dead? Martin Del Guayo, Accessed 21 April 2018 http://www.martindelguayo.com/internal-blog/isphenomenologyinarchitecturedead Part 2: Mise-en-scene, Film Analysis, Accessed 21 April 2018 https://filmanalysis.coursepress.yale.edu/mise-en-scene/ Paris Zoological Park/Bernard Tschumi Urbanists Architects + Veronique Descharrieres, Archdaily, Accessed 21 April 2018 https://www.archdaily.com/550663/paris-zoological-park-atelier-jacqueline-osty-and-associes David Bordwell, Unsteadicam Chronicles, Observations on Film Art, Accessed 21 April 2018 http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2007/08/17/unsteadicam-chronicles/ Teshima Art Museum, Benesse Art Site Museum, Accessed 21 April 2018, http://benesse-artsite.jp/en/art/teshima-artmuseum.html Kabuki: History, Themes, Famous Plays, and Costumes, Facts and Details, Accessed 21 April 2018 http://factsanddetails.com/japan/cat20/sub131/item715.html#chapter-9
The following are the films the thesis has referenced and/or taken screencaps and images from: Rashomon (1950) / Akira Kurosawa Dogville (2003) / Lars Von Trier Metropolis (1927) / Fritz Lang Blade Runner (1982) / Ridley Scott Manhattan (1979) / Woody Allen Lost in Translation (2003) / Sofia Coppola Blade Runner 2049 (2017) / Denis Villeneuve The Mirror (1975) / Andrei Tarkovsky Melancholia (2011) / Lars von Trier Dreams (1990) / Akira Kurosawa Life of Pi (2012) / Ang Lee Days of Heaven (1978) / Terrence Malik Silence (2016) / Martin Scorsese In the Mood for Love (2000) / Wong Kar Wai The Shining (1980) / Stanley Kubrick Mulholland Drive (2001) / David Lynch Black Swan (2010) / Daren Aronofsky Battleship Potemkin (1925) / Sergei Eisenstein Antichrist (2009) / Lars von Trier Arrival (2016) / Denis Villeneuve The Royal Tenebaums (2006) / Wes Anderson 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) / Stanley Kubrick Full Metal Jacket (1987) / Stanley Kubrick Skyfall (2012) / Sam Mendes Persona (1966) / Ingmar Bergman Enter the Void (2009) / Gaspar Noe Marie Antoinette (2006) / Sofia Coppola
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