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1. Musa Jadoon!
Dr. Richard Koeck!
10 January 2015!
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Architecture, Film, and
Movement !
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Tracing the essence of movement in both the Arts !
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We know that architecture and film share a lot of commonalities but what sets them
apart from other subjects is they're shared temporal nature and spatial structure,
basically the fact that they both incorporate movement (physical and non-physical) in
lived space. Looking at both fields from an experiential perspective, architecture
allows us to traverse through it while film allows us to travel to an imaginary space,
while we physically remain in another space. In both fields, the phenomenon of
movement is essential to our experience.!
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"Architecture exists, like cinema, in the dimension of time and movement. One
conceives and reads a building in terms of sequences. To erect a building is to
predict and seek effects of contrast and linkage Through which one passes...In the
continuous shot/sequence that a building is, the architect works with cuts and edits,
framings and openings ... screens, planes legible from obligatory points of passage."!
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Jean Nouvel !
!
In the quote above, Jean Nouvel describes his own work in terms of its connections
to film. Architecture and film overlap on the aspect of movement. Furthermore,
Nouvel states that “The notion of the journey is a new way of composing
architecture” (Bruno, 2002, p.69) With reference to the movement experienced by
the viewer in films, Walter Benjamin proposes that even though the viewer is turned
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2. into just an observer without physical movement, the cinematic space gives
physicality back to the user while it triggers kinesthetic experiences with the help of
the haptic and motor space experiences. By this, Benjamin implies that films are
viewed by our muscles and skin, and not only our eyes. In ‘Eyes of the Skin’, Juhani
Pallasmaa suggests that our eyes want to collaborate with our other senses and that
while experiencing architecture our eyes act as an organ for calculating distance and
separation, hence, apart from our physical movement in space, our eyes also help
us move and touch. Therefore, Architecture and film both propose a kinesthetic
experience of space, and the visuals we experience are as much part of our bodies
as they are of the eyes. What triggers these experiences, in my view, is our physical
and perceived movement through space. !
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In what follows, i will take a closer look at the phenomenon of ‘Movement’ in the
works and theories, of the renowned film-maker Sergei Eisenstein and icons of
Modern Architecture such as Le Corbusier, Bernard Tschumi, Rem Koolhaas and
etc, and make an attempt to see how these ideas were translated from film to
architecture and vice versa, and in turn, informed one another by the synergy
produced. In her book, ‘The Atlas of Emotion’, Giuliana Bruno quotes Steven
Shaviro, “ much work remains to be done on the psychophysiology of cinematic
experience: the ways in which film renders vision tactile… and reinstates a
materialistic… semiotics” (Bruno, 2002, p.70). My aim is also to see how this
psychophysiology of cinematic experience informs architectural design and in turn
improves our experience of space. !
!
Coming back to ‘Movement’, the movement of the inhabitant and the viewer have
always spearheaded the design process of architecture and film. Both practices
involve human movement through space, to describe this movement in broader
terms, Guiliana Bruno has used the term ‘Transito’, which is not necessarily physical
movement, it is the circulation that includes passages, traversals, transitions,
transitory states, spatial erotics, and (e)motion. By abstracting our movement or
perceived movement in both forms of art, we are able to merge the displacement
between what appears to be static and mobile.!
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3. !
“An axis is perhaps the first human manifestation; it is the means of every human
act. The axis is the regulator of architecture… Arrangement is the grading of the
axes and so it is the grading of aims, the classification of intentions. The architect
therefore assigns destinations to his axes. These ends are the wall or light and
space” (Corbusier, 1960, p. 174).!
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
The idea of the ‘architectural promenade’ in modern architecture first came through
Le Corbusier when he used the phrase to describe the movement within two of his
houses, the Maisons La Roche-Jeannaret (1923) and the Villa Savoye (1929-32). He
explains both in the book of his ‘Complete Works’. "This house [the Maisons La
Roche-Jeanneret] will be rather like an architectural promenade. You enter: the
architectural spectacle at once offers itself to the eye. You follow an itinerary and the
perspectives develop with great variety, developing a play of light on the walls or
making pools of shadow. Large windows open up views of the exterior where the
architectural unity is reasserted” (Corbusier and Jeannaret, 1995, p. 60). "In this
house [the Villa Savoye] we are presented with a real architectural promenade,
offering prospects which are constantly changing and unexpected, even astonishing.
It is interesting that so much variety has been obtained when from a design point of
view a rigorous scheme of pillars and beams has been adopted. . . . It is by moving
about . . .that one can see the orders of architecture developing” (Corbusier and
Jeannaret, 1995, p. 24).!
!
Basically, the architectural
promenade is first seen at one
enters the building, it is defined by
a path to follow, traversing through
this path exposes the various
a r c h i t e c t u r a l s p a c e s a n d
elements. However, Le Corbusier
distinguishes the ramp among
other elements and states that the
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Architectural Promenade, Villa Savoye

4. ramp is the component that makes the promenade “real”. In the case for Vila
Savoye, the ramp is the component that, with the help of light, draws the inhabitant
inside, in other words, initiates the thought of movement within us. It is important to
mention here that going up the ramp, one appreciates the architecture from multiple
vantage points. Once inside, the architectural promenade manifests itself with the
help of other aspects, the various spaces are composed together keeping in mind
their ‘massing’, and the sequence of movement through them, so that the movement
through space becomes such an engaging experience that without this movement
one cannot experience the compositional arrangements in the same way.!
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Movement through space is as dominant in architecture as it is in film, as both these
experiences engage ‘seeing’ and ‘movement’ in tandem. The development of the
idea of Architectural Promenade reverberated in Sergei Eisenstein’s essay, ‘Montage
and Architecture’, which was written in the late 1930’s. But Eisenstein had already
began developing his ideas of film with architectural undertones, in 1927 he began
work on an experimental abstract movie project called ‘The Glass House’, which was
never completed but regardless of
that, it has been and still is an
inspiration to both the arts. In the first
version of the script, Eisenstein
proposes a mobile camera (which
acts as an observer) and an elevator;
this elevator moves between planes,
floors and ceilings, which are all
made of glass, and constantly
changing the views of the observer.
The inhabitants of the building are
blind and the camera/observer is the
only one who is able to see through
the transparency of its structure. By
t h i s , h e p r o d u c e s c h a n g i n g
viewpoints to all possible directions
and creates the basic principle of
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Eisenstein’s Story Board, Glass House

5. dramaturgy, which leads to the ‘narrative structure’. Eisenstein wanted to experiment
by taking away from the observer, the sensations of hardness and weight. His
concept of light and material were such that he wanted the light to dissolve the
materiality of glass. We can trace Eisenstein’s fascination with glass to some of the
experimental photographs of the Bauhaus, André Kertész’s Distortions (published in
1928), Moholy Nagy’s kinetic installations, or a series of pictures with glass objects
taken by the Soviet artist Alexander Rodchenko.!
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The Glass House was based on vision and the possibility of looking at things from
various angles, Eisenstein defined this as the “comedy of and for the
eye” (Eisenstein, 1996, pp. 109-125). Windows, walls, ceilings, floors do not limit the
vision; the distinction between inside and outside, above and below, near and far, are
all eliminated with the use of glass. The Glass House changed the concepts of the
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One of the many nudes in Distortions of 1928 by Andre Kertesz

6. camera as the eye, as a vision that penetrates through things, and the house as a
cinematic space. He also changes the system of cinematic representation, by
making his objects and bodies float in the Glass House, liberating them form the
force of gravity.!
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Eisenstein’s Glass House was also seen as a sarcastic response to some of the
Constructivist and Functionalist architectural theories of the time. These
Constructivists and Functionalists aimed to place the biological instincts of people
under strict control by rational organisation of architectural space, Eisenstein’s Glass
House laughs at such theories of ‘strict control’. In 1928, Eisenstein met with Le
Corbusier and they both exchanged their works in a dialogue. Eisenstein recounted
his dialogue with Le Corbusier in an article: “Le Corbusier is a great fan of the
cinema, which he considers to be the only contemporary art along with architecture”.
Le Corbusier said, “It seems to me that in my creative work i am thinking the way
Eisenstein is thinking as he creates his movies”(Eisenstein, 1996, pp. 109-125)!
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Le Corbusier with Sergei Eisenstein and Andre Burov, 1928

7. Coming back to Eisenstein’s essay on ‘Montage and Architecture’, we can now see
how his earlier work on ‘The Glass House’ and inspirations from Le Corbusier’s
architectural promenade evolved into his ideas of movement through space. In
‘Montage and Architecture’, Eisenstein forms a crucial link between the architectural
ensemble, film, and the moving spectator. His way of doing so was by taking the
reader for a walk, giving an architectural tour around the Acropolis. To start his
exploration, he uses the word ‘Path’. The path can be physical or the imaginary path
followed by the eye, and the varying perceptions of an object that depend on how it
appears to the eye. It can also be the path followed by the mind, away from time and
space, sequenced into a meaning by the static/immobile spectator. Concerning the
immobile spectator, Eisenstein talks about the perceptual interplay existing between
immobility and mobility. He talks about a mobile dynamics involved in the act of
viewing films, with the viewer being static. This static viewer moves across an
imaginary path, moving across different space and time. The imagination of the
viewer helps to form a fictional weaving of distant moments and far-apart places. In
his essay he links this weaving process of experiencing architecture, in the sense
that the spectator, while walking through a building absorbs and connects visual
spaces. The inhabitant of architecture is extended to the viewer of film.!
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“An architectural ensemble… is a montage from the point of view of the moving
spectator… Cinematographic montage is, too, a means to ‘link’ in one point-the
screan- various elements (fragments) of a phenomenon filmed in diverse
dimensions, from diverse points of view and sides” (Bruno, 2002, p.56)!
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! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Sergei Eisenstein!
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Following this ‘point of view of the moving spectator’, Eisenstein personifies the
relationship between the ‘moving body’ with film and architecture, as his idea here is
based on the observer in the field. This observer is physical and moving, literally a
body traversing through space. He links the architecture, film, and the perceptual
path to ‘peripatetics’, a theory of itinerant, walking or meandering around by Aristotle.
Eisenstein highlights this point by taking the reader for a walk around the Acropolis of
Athens, which he calls “the perfect example of one of the most ancient films”. This
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8. walk starts with physical movement but then progresses towards a perceptual path.
By considering the Acropolis as a site to be admired while on the move, Eisenstein
was drawing inspiration from August Choisy, an architectural historian who wrote on
peripatetic vision. By the movement of walking around the Acropolis, it is our legs
that construct meaning, they create, “a montage sequence or an architectural
ensemble… subtly composed, shot by shot” (Bruno, 2002, p.56).!
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“Film’s undoubted ancestor… is- architecture.”!
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Sergei Eisenstein!
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Here Eisenstein forms a meaningful and genealogical overlap between architecture
and film. By constructing a filmic path through the Acropolis, a structure constructed
way before the advent of film, Eisenstein shows us how film consists of heavy
architectural undertones. Now if we shift our perspective around and look at the
filmic space, and how it produces perceived movement within us, we are confronted
with a framed space and perhaps seemingly limited, however this framing allows the
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Diagram showing Acropolis of Athens

9. viewer to consume it as a space to traverse through, and perhaps to other imagined
spaces. So the fact that our understanding of space arouses our tactile senses and
opens the doors to movement is fundamental to both architecture and film.!
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“Buildings are appropriated… by touch and sight… Tactile appropriation is
accomplished…by habit…This mode of appropriation is developed with reference to
architecture…today (is) in the film”.!
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Benjamin Walter!
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Here Benjamin expresses that the perception of film and architecture both heavily
depend on habit and tactility, both summon our haptic sense. Both evoke a desire to
traverse or move, in physical and non physical ways.!
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Coming to some contemporary examples of architecture that have drawn from
Eisenstein’s ideas, it is important to take a look at Bernard Tschumi’s theoretical
project called, ‘The Manhattan Transcripts’. The drawings produced in this project
‘transcribe an architectural interpretation of reality’. The Manhattan Transcripts
consist of photographs, plans, sections and diagrams that outline spaces and
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Manhattan Transcripts, Bernard Tschumi

10. indicate the movement of the different protagonists intruding into the architectural
“stage set”. One of the important themes of the Transcripts is the non coincidence
between movement and space. The Transcripts express a new relation between
space, movement, and event; expressing their independence from each other by
breaking down the conventional components of architecture and rebuilding them
along different axes. While tracing the different movements of people walking around
an architectural set, Tschumi states that “the effect is not unlike an Eisenstein film
script” (Bruno, 2002, pp.57-59). Making an even closer relation to film, Tschumi also
expresses the fact that the understanding of architectural space does not depend on
a single frame but a succession of frames or spaces.!
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In another example of Tschumi’s
work, on this occasion a real
built project, the Parecde de la
Villette, the circulation path
designed was labelled as a
“cinematic promenade”. The
placement of trees and shrubs
in the park have been conceived
as a film, while onewalks through the circulation path. Again, movement is key to
understanding Tschumi’s concept here.!
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Rem Koolhaas, who also worked as a screen writer before becoming an architect
draws a lot of similarities between his architectural designs and film. He goes on to
say that, “I see little difference between one activity and the other…I think the art of
the script writer is to conceive sequences of episodes which build suspense and a
chain of events… The largest part of my work is montage… spatial montage” (Bruno,
2002, p. 68) . In terms of movement and architectural promenade, one of koolhaas’s
projects stand out, Très Grande Bibliothèque. The brief was to have smaller libraries
contained in a single building, including libraries for moving images among other
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Parc De La Villette, Bernard Tschumi

11. resources. The density of information and movement through it became the
overriding concept of Koolhaas’s design concept. Koolhaas folded and cut up sheets
of paper to express the floors of the building and this inspired him to develop a new
way of movement through space. The movement through the library is continuous as
the floors have a slight angle which aids the inhabitant to ascend and descend
through levels. Koolhaas has turned the whole floor into a ramp and along the path
of circulating through the floor/ramp one can witness various compositions of smaller
spaces, structural columns and other events. !
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Charles Jencks, in ‘The Architecture of the Jumping Universe’ highlights that that
Koolhaas has superimposed the layers of floors without any narrative or priority, and
that this strategy is different from the controlled architectural promenade of Le
Corbusier because there is no clear axis involved. Perhaps so, But i personally feel
that Koolhaas has opened up the path of the user in such a way, that movement (in
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Model of Library, Rem Koolhaas

12. different directions) within the space doesn't seem as limited as Corbusier’s Villa
Savoye. Perhaps, as we move forward in time, and architecture becomes more
complex, Le Corbusier’s ‘axis’ and Eisenstein’s ‘path’ will too become more complex;
multiplied, and interwoven in a network within space. Allowing for more different
kinds of movement. Le Corbusier’s idea of the architectural promenade is the main
connection to Eisenstein idea of the architectural ensemble and film, this connection
is solely made by the understanding of movement of the body and mind, in
experiencing both arts. The framing of space in film, and the sequencing of
components and events in architectural design are both driving forces behind our
physical and perceived movement. !
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13. Bibliography!
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Bruno, G. (2002) Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. London:
Verso.!
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Cairns, G (2007) The Architect Behind the Camera; a spatial vision of cinema.
Madrid: Abada Editores.!
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Corbusier, L. and Jeanneret, P. (1995) Oeuvre Compléte. Basel, Boston, Berlin:
Birkhauser.!
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Corbusier, L. (1960) Towards a New Architecture. New York: Praeger Publishers !
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Deriu, D. (2012) Transforming ideas into pictures: model photography and modern
architecture. Available from: https://www.academia.edu/4412652/
Transforming_Ideas_into_Pictures_Model_Photography_and_Modern_Architecture!
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Eisenstein, S. (1996) Three Utopias: Architectural Drafts for a Film Theory. Berlin:
Potemkin Press.!
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Eisenstein, S. (1938) Montage and Architecture. Available from: http://
cosmopista.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/eisenstein_montage-and-architecture.pdf!
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Eisenstein, S., (1989) Montage and Architecture with an Introduction by Yve-Alain
Bois. Available form: https://doubleoperative.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/eisenstein-
sergei-m-_montage-and-architecture.pdf!
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Jencks, C. (1995) The Architecture of the Jumping Universe. New York: St. Martin's
Press.!
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Nitsche, M., Roudavski, S., Penz, F., and Thomas, M. Narrative Expressive Space.
Available from: http://lmc.gatech.edu/~nitsche/download/
Nitsche_NarrativeSpace_02.pdf!
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14. !
Pallasmaa, J. (2012) Eyes of the skin. West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons!
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Perez-Gomez, A. Hermeneutics as Architectural Discourse. Available from: http://
www.mcgill.ca/architecture-theory/files/architecture-theory/hermeneutics.pdf!
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Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2010) Kinesthetic Experience: Understanding movement
inside and out. Available from: http://www.wtci-nyc.org/page38/files/AG-kinFINAL.pdf!
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Tschumi, B. (1981) Manhattan Transcripts. London: Academy Editions.!
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http://www.sergei-eisenstein.com/page1.html!
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http://www.oma.eu/projects/1989/tr%C3%A8s-grande-biblioth%C3%A8que/!
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http://www.tschumi.com/projects/18/#!
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripatetic_school!
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_Effect!
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http://www.wordsinspace.net/media-architecture/2012-spring/?p=526!
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http://www.quondam.com/31/3171.htm!
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http://www.rouge.com.au/7/eisenstein.html!
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