The Kwizach Architect

I really enjoyed watching Dune, and it's such a cheesy movie, it made me wonder why I enjoyed it so much. I think what set it apart for me was the architectural look and feel of the film design. It's a really contrived way to put it, calling something "architectural", but I'll qualify it- I used to consider architecture as a designation, Architecture with a capital A, that designated built spaces/structures that transcended utilitarianism, buildings that combined form and function, with an aesthetic component. A garden shed was not "architecture," say, unless it was a distinctively Zaha Hadid shed, or Gerhy shed. Such was my conception of architecture even after my first year of study. Now, though, I see architecture as a way of lumping various ways of describing aspects of a space. Architecture is a quality, not a badge. You can discuss the architecture of a common garden shed, just as you can discuss the architecture of a table, although at that scale, the conversation is more about anthropometrics, and ergonomics.

I will not be the first to point out the similarities between architecture and cinematography. Both deal with the relationship between a person and their surroundings, and some have compared how a person moves through a space to scenes and shots from a movie. For me, movies that tend to linger on that relationship between a person and a space are therefore more architectural. However, many movies use setting either as metaphor, or to boost the emotional impact of the characters. The Overlook hotel in The Shining for example, is not so much perceived as a hotel in the architectural sense (how old, how functional, how beautiful, etc.) as much as it is a reflection of the insanity and evil of the spirits that inhabit it.

Some movies take a common building and by way of editing and filming, make you acutely aware of it as a building. Delicatessin, for example, is almost exlusively filmed inside and on top of a block of apartments. The details of the building lend themselves to major plot points, such as the flooded basement, the creaky stairs, and the ventilation piping. There's an underlying claustrophobia of cramped quarters. You're very much aware of the architecture, which begins to pique my interest as a designer, but the spaces themselves are quite mundane.

Which brings me back to Dune. The settings are fantastic- the architecture of the buildings and spacecraft and caves show how much time and money were spent on them, and they're really cool to imagine yourself in these spaces.

The cinematography also plays to the settings, giving sweeping views of the stark landscapes with tiny human figures, or capturing how the characters move around or fill the interior spaces. So I'll put up with the cheesy dialog and imagine myself in spaces that are quite literally impossible to build.