Architecture in Narratives

As viewers, we all fall accused of ignoring the art ever present in every film, we all overlook the paragraph elaborating on high ceilings and focus on the princess dancing underneath. We deny ourselves the joy of an art hidden within the art of storytelling. We fail to acknowledge its subtle presence, preoccupied by the captivity of an overlapping breathless kiss. In our preoccupied state, we get carried away by what we see in movies and read in books, we fantasize of a morning sunrise through pastel window frames, we want our rooms to feel the same, with the same sunrise. Not realizing that we live in low rise cubes framed by concrete, in cities where high rise offices cloud our view. When we look at architecture in such a straightforward and blunt manner, we are incorrectly perceiving architecture to be what it isn’t.

For a long time, architects have had to deal with trying to recreate the false aspirations of people blissfully ignorant of what architecture truly entails. Professionals deal with problems bigger than just how to get you the best view from your balcony. They contemplate on how to get common people comfortable in their surroundings, redesigning spaces that people are going to be living in. Be it an enclosed space or an open playground, architects have carefully examined the context and altered spaces to suit not only your needs but also compliment a lifestyle.

Movies can best vouch for how important a role architecture plays in creating a new dimension, settings, wherein regular humans fall into exhilarating storylines. In the movie, Upside down, most forget to notice how the surrounding has been designed to portray a variant lifestyle, wherein life is not as we know it to exist in reality. We enjoy the scenes at zero level but fail to credit the efforts of those who design such spaces to facilitate a storyline trying to entice you with the existence of dual gravities.

Clip showing the office at zero level from Upside Down.

Architecture has repeatedly been used to draw out emotions envisioned by the script. While storytelling, architecture always pays close attention to the array of emotions we are required to feel as per the story while moving through a space. It’s realized that, when we move to a large space – though enclosed – through a lower entrance, we are more likely to be held in awe of the gigantic nature of the space, as our minds subconsciously compare the height of the space to the height of the door. What can be better suited as an example that benefits from the efforts of such intuitive designing than, the scene where Willy Wonka opens the tiny door into the fantasy world that could as well be every child’s dreamland. Such a breathless moment could have been achieved only through of the way we were introduced to the new space.

In return architecture becomes a reflection of our emotions, hopes and dreams. Creation of the city of Gotham was essential in the rise of the dark knight as a saver of Gotham and its people. In order to bring Batman to life, the author first had to envision an entire city in need of saving. The actual city of Gotham was realized by reimagining the city of New York, while adding elements of gothic architecture and medieval architecture, giving it a more ancient and timeless look. It was given the eerie atmosphere that exudes with its several creepy gargoyles and dark twisting alleys. It was this setting that helped in generating depth in the intensity of the crimes that took place and emphasize on the need Gotham had for a superhero.

Clip showing the city of Gotham from The Dark Knight .

In other ways, evolution of architecture has been used as themes to partly channel new storylines. Throughout the years, evolution of architecture has been examined through the development and styles of cathedrals, churches and other templar monuments. Ken Follet had a keen interest in medieval architecture - especially in cathedral architecture - which he agrees to have been the inspiration to his best seller, The Pillars of the Earth. The story in itself does not revolve around the construction of the church, however it briefly emphasizes on the importance of construction of the church. Hence, the protagonists in the book are shown to be dedicated to the task, giving them character and purpose. During that period, the process of construction was slow, moreover a large project such as the construction of a church would take even longer. In the 1999 preface to the book, Ken Follet explains, “It took at least thirty years to build a cathedral and most took longer because they would run out of money, or be attacked or invaded. So, the story covers the entire lives of the main characters.” This reaffirms the value of architecture in influencing the psychology of viewers and the length to which architecture can sometimes go in shaping contributing to the theme of storylines.

A concept will forever remain on a piece of paper if not for architecture. Architecture is essentially adding in another dimension to an idea, making it visually possible and physically tangible.

With the cinematic marvel The Cabinet of Dr. Caliger in mind, Hermann Georg Scheffauer, a dramatist, states that “an advance on the two-dimensional world of the picture, the scenic architect of the films such as Caligari could dominate furniture, room, house, street, city, landscape, universe! The fourth dimension has begun to evolve out of this photographic cosmos”.

Visualization of abstract concepts like the existence of a fifth dimension, such as the one referred to in Interstellar, give us perspective into the possibilities of parallel realities. Though the portrayal of such concepts can be debatable, it initiates a fresh chain of thoughts and helps expresses a complex idea to the common masses through means comprehensible.

Clip showing the fifth dimension from Interstellar.

Nothing can dispute the fact that architecture is an ever-present entity in narratives of all kinds. But this cinematic architecture tends to get ignored as we get pulled into the pace of the movie or the lines of a book. The extravagant descriptions of the stone-faced buildings and the glass cased facades stare right at us but goes through us as we divulge into the intricacies of the characters’ emotional dilemma. Architecture has very subtle ways in expressing a great range of details and hence it is that much more important for us to notice the white picket fences hinting at a happy ever after, dry in the warm May summer behind the romance of pretty faces.