Film gives us the rare opportunity to completely question all that has come to be accepted in terms of the language of architecture as well as architectural and historic convention. Vitruvius claimed architecture was composed of the triple essence: strength, utility, and aesthetic effect. Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639) quaintly changed this to, 'commodity, firmness and delight.' It would be safe to say that the majority of architecture that has been created to date has attempted to follow this dictate.

Throughout the history of film, we have seen a change in the ways in which architecture is used, portrayed and represented in film.

This year's theme will begin to combine ideas of the relationship of the use of architectural and urban elements in film with respect to dystopia and the uncanny.

The films we have viewed have all posited a slightly different take on, or representation of madness. In some cases the architecture and its set based manipulation allowed directors to create quite specific environments that supported this theme. In others, existing architecture was manipulated in such a way as to lend this air to the film. In some films it was the actions of the characters that allowed perfectly "normal" sets to be read in this manner. Some plots were more "insane" than others.

This assignment was to take one of the key words or phrases listed to the right and use at least four of the films we have viewed this term to construct a web page that illustrates the presenation of madness in the set of films, and as relates to the larger discussion of the term.

back to arch and film 2008

As part of the course, students made films that incorporated the notion of madness into the presentation. The links below take you to their uploads on YouTube or Vimeo.

Kitchen Play
Andrew Azzopardi and Tyler Bowa