The World of Architecture and Films | Understanding Architecture's implications on Set-Design

Intriguing explorations and curiosity has led to step to explore and experience the field of set-design in order to understand the visual aspects of story telling while being able to apply the architectural intellect and have the spatial and non-built designs a narrative based judgement to them. 

One of the most answered questions and amongst the forever discussed topics, with regards to the beginning of any such blogs remains- What is Architecture?

Architecture is commonly defined as a practice of designing and executing building, spaces, cities and structures. It is considered to be one of the really old professions known to the mankind, as since the very old times, man has been curiously building shelters for himself along with the functional and aesthetic appropriation of the designs. Architecture today is considered to be one of the widely practiced professions as well.

Architect Norman Foster states - "Architecture is an expression of values – the way we build is a reflection of the way we live."

It suggests that architecture or spaces are a reflection of what and how we are and the way we live. 

It not just defines us but also tells a story of the viewer the subject and the demo-graph occupying it being the object over here. 

A person’s space defines the characteristic of the person. And hence it is believed that Architecture Speaks!! 

It tells us a lot more than the fundamental aspects of functions, it’s services, typology etc. It goes beyond and reflects us on our own beings.

When  architecture or a space is being thought about, one subconsciously starts relating to an understanding of its being as a result of a story or a reference to attain to a reasoning behind its existence.

Architecture as a broader concept does that for us when we look at examples from the history and periodic times. When one looks at a building from the Egyptian times or Renaissance times, one receives a suggestion by an information with regards to why the structures were built, who built them and how were they built. 

The distribution of architectural development over the time in the three epochs as Classical-Symbolic-Romantic by the German idealist philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel gives an understanding about the human progression and approach towards the imagination of architecture with time and how it has evolved over centuries and has been influenced and inspired by the art around while representing itself. 

Humans have throughout been storytellers and receivers of the same as well. 

The juxtaposition of architecture and the demographical advancement in time and space is indicative to a certain sense that architecture is reflective towards our beings and the way we live and what we have been. 

And hence periodically we have arrived at spaces and have defined typologies to these spaces and architectures with regards to it’s uses.

For example- a warehouse, a hospital, an educational institution, a prison and so on. Now These are spaces that are fundamentally different and exclusive from each other with regards to their functions, yet are defined and addressed by a thought or a narrative. The narratives and imaginations of these spaces are different too and the commonality lies purely in idea of conceiving the space and having its functions directed by its narratives of factors such as utility, aesthetics etc. 

French Architect Quatremere de Quincy would put the idea of typology as - “The word ‘type’ does not represent so much the image of something that must be copied or imitated perfectly as the idea of an element that must itself serve as a rule for the model” 

Which says that while defining a space for a particular story or a developing a world for a specific narrative, the literal copying or imitation of the already defined spaces may not serve the ideal typological representation of the architecture or the space as the idea or the conceptualisation of its rule in terms of its utility. So it's the utility and its effect that would define the typology slightly more than the literal representation of the space. 

One can get a clear idea and a better understanding when looked at what architecture means for set-design and visualisation of films. 

It is said that humans are always intrigued and are captured in the worlds of stories more convincingly in the medium of films. Films are visual depiction of stories.

They talk about stories and characters. The worlds in films are defined by the stories or characters as well.

 Films makes one delve into the world of an imagination as conceived by its creator. It helps develop a certain perception about the non-existent world.

It is also said to take a person away from his own world and existence, even though for a brief period of time, into a world that has an emotional comfort and is hypothetical and imaginative, which humans may or may not be a part of in their respective times of existence. 

Historic and periodic films are suggestive and informative for us in terms of the era that they portray, the information of the world that our ancestors might have been a part of and it has only come down to us in the form of stories and visual depictions like the mediums of the films. 

These worlds of films are created by an imagination conceived in order to justify the story and the character’s environment and to uplift it so that it is not only an environment or a static background, once excluded from the characters, but they themselves have the ability to tell us a story of the world imagined and are suggestive towards its happenings.

The subconscious mind hence starts perceiving these worlds and making an understanding for own self in order to understand the story and get a better a judgement of it. 

A way to understand these worlds is to exclude the characters from the film and observe nothing but the backdrop or the sets that they were a part of. 

To understand it better one can look at a few picked examples :

1) Harry Potter : The fictional fantasy worlds of the Hogwarts in Harry Potter. 

2) Grand Hotel : The Art-Deco hotel of the time in 1932 by Cedric Gibbons from the film GRAND HOTEL 

3) Barry Lyndon : The world of the British society from the 18th Cenury London in one of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece ‘Barry Lyndon’ which was also created as a replica of paintings from the 18th century painters such as Thomas Gainsborough. 

4) Living Triology : A fine example of a minimalistic yet a suggestive world beautifully reflecting human-scapes in the Roy Anderson’s Living Trilogy also places the story and the characters in a perspective 

5) The Revolutionary Road : The middle class layout of a couple living on the revolutionary road, is informative towards the tastes and the way a married couple with kids live in. 

6) The Godfather : A beautiful amalgamation of the dark mafia world and yet a family world of the Godfather goes along with the story towards its progression throughout. 

7) The Schindler’s List : A periodic example from the World War || suggests the living conditions for the trapped Jews, it also takes us through various levels of understanding of spaces by showcasing different worlds spanning from the trapped Jews, to Schindler’s company, to the Nazi generals spaces of habitations. 

 8) 2010 and Interstellar : The world of spaceships and spaces is a different and a great example of the architecture that reflects to the positioning of these stories that take you to the otherwise non-approachable areas such as the probes, spaces and the planets. 

9) Bahubali : The Indian magnums of the fictional epic Bahubali is indicative towards the societal status of the kings and also in a away defines the term and the tile ‘Bahubali’ 

10) Panipat : The world of the 18th century India, the then Hindostan, reflects on the architecture and captures it’s spanning across different timelines and positioning, such the palaces, the tents and different tents with specific utilities, throughout the journey leading to one of the gruesome battles in history. 

11)Dedavs : The extravagant beautiful palace of the period from Devdas is suggestive of the richness it embodied. 

12) Ek Doctor ki Maut : A scientist’s laboratory in his own house sparks a difference from his house, and suggests us the level of dedication the scientist has for his work. Though a part of his, the laboratory yet is a different world. 

13) Dr. Kotnis ki Amar Kahani : One of V. Shantaram’s epic defines for us the world during the Second World Waves from the 1940s when Doctor Kotnis was sent to China to do provide medical assistance to the troops. The caves and the camps and the army doctor’s serving the patients beautifully suggests us what it was to be during the time. 

14) The Grand Budapest Hotel : The Hotel as filmed by Wes Anderson goes along with the story and creates an impression for us as to what Anderson wishes to say through the hotel as well. 

15) The Sunshine Boys : Once upon a comic star-duo are now reduced to living miles away from each other. One of the characters Willy Clark who once lived in a suite now reduced to living in an apartment with innumerable amount of memorabilia Scattered around, pictures, awards etc. a couch and a TV in front of it is suggestive towards what the once a star comedian now a grumpy old man is living with and how. 

16) Daddy : The world of the 1980s Mumbai, India depicted while showing the story of a gangster turned politician, tells us the story of the era as well, what it meant at the time to have the mills shutdown and millions of workers losing jobs and the living conditions of the chawls in Mumbai. 

17) 1917 : One of war epics as told by Sam Mendes indicates the world of the battle field with all it’s trenches and ditches that inform us while we pass through the film as a joinery on the field, as to what it meant to have a surprise that would decide your fate. 

18) Silence : Martin Scorsese’s epic is a good example of confinement and de-confinment and relativity towards the Almighty and it’s existence. 

19) Strangers on Train / Rear Window : Alferd hitchcoks’ worlds as designed by Ted Haworth and Hal Pereira depicts Hitchcock’s intentions and serve as good definitions to what Hitchcock wants to portray and tell a story with. 

As an architect it helps to visualise and imagine the spaces that are directed from a narrative aspect as well as helps to understand the scale as the anthropometry or reflect certain elements in history etc. that’s expected out of it. 

A sense of the understanding art in terms of its scale, colour distribution, technical aspects of execution, aesthetic sensibilities all add up to the designing of these worlds and spaces that would justify the characters and push or uplift the story further in order to make it more conniving and believable to capture it into the minds of the viewer. 

An idea is conceived by understanding and to a certain extent even relating to the characters to begin with. 

The characters, their background, their likes and dislikes, their aspirations, the believes, their existence define how their spaces and their worlds would be and what their worlds would look like. So much so, that regardless of the character’s presence in it sometimes, it gives us an understanding of the character, an insight into his/her world helps one subconsciously imagine the character while viewing the film. 

The spaces that are derived from the narratives also establish a sense of mood that the story wishes to create in order to portray what it wants to share.

These worlds hence, not only tell us about the characters but also gives us an impression of the mood and the ambience it wants us to absorb into so that we are driven more convincingly and are able to efficiently perceive and understand the story in a much better sense. 

Architecture helps in looking into these aspects of the design in the films. It helps one in visualising a space about a character and the story with regards to the aesthetic aspects as well as an appropriate justification of its necessary senses such as anthropology, history etc. 

Personal exercise -

Now, there is a certain practice that I follow in order to develop the ability to imagine a space or a world from the narrative. 

I pick up a book of a work of fiction. I check if there is a movie made on it. I do not go and watch the movie yet. I finish reading the book and then go and watch the movie. 

This helps me visualise the movie for my own self on my own terms when I read it without being told or imagined because of an impression it would essentially create the moment I watch the film made on it. 

It helps me imagine and develop the world and the story on my own abilities and thought processes. When I go back and watch the film, it helps as a cross check, as a learning, as to how someone else has visualised, what justifications are there by the performers in it, how differently the story is being told yet have the same morale or the outcome, understanding the layers of the making of it. 

This exercise helps me reflect on my own understandings and the very notions of visualisations and designs, and helps unlearn and learn things. 

It feels like the book is like a written poem, when its being made into a song, there are layers and factors of music and instruments and the tonality which uplifts and justifies the written work into a song. 

Similarly the film when its conceived is made with these layers and factors of different collaborative minds coming together and making the film out of the written book. 

The initial reading helps you cultivate the ability to imagine, the cross-checking it with its film helps in understanding how these layers and factors have performed in order to tell the story. 

Examples - 

• The George Orwell book 1984 which has a movie by the name “1984” production designed by Alan Cameron. 
• One of Bengal’s and India’s most celebrated literature works “Pather Panchali” which was made into a film by the great Satyajit Ray. 

Keep reading !! Keep watching films !!

- Malhar Atul Ambekar -