Introduction

Author(s):  
Victoria L. Evans

After describing one of Peter Greenaway's recent efforts to move beyond the limits of the cinema, Evans proposes that Douglas Sirk had already begun to dissolve the boundaries the medium by assimilating elements of avant-garde art, architecture and design into his mise-en-scène. She goes on to assert that Sirk's importation of a high art aesthetic into the low genre of melodrama echoed the widespread European Modernist preoccupation with the creation of a synergistic Gesamtkunstwerk or "total art work" during the period in which he intellectually came of age. Finally, the director's tendency to create "pictures" of the external landscape that the characters (and the viewer) are obliged to contemplate through the window frame is interpreted in the light of the theories of Le Corbusier.

Author(s):  
Justus Nieland

A key figure in the ongoing legacy of modern cinema, David Lynch designs environments for spectators, transporting them to inner worlds built by mood, texture, and uneasy artifice. We enter these famously cinematic interiors to be wrapped in plastic, the fundamental substance of Lynch's work. This volume revels in the weird dynamism of Lynch's plastic worlds. Exploring the range of modern design idioms that inform Lynch's films and signature mise-en-scène, the book argues that plastic is at once a key architectural and interior design dynamic in Lynch's films, an uncertain way of feeling essential to Lynch's art, and the prime matter of Lynch's strange picture of the human organism. The book offers striking new readings of Lynch's major works (Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Mulholland Dr., Inland Empire) and his early experimental films, placing Lynch's experimentalism within the aesthetic traditions of modernism and the avant-garde; the genres of melodrama, film noir, and art cinema; architecture and design history; and contemporary debates about cinematic ontology in the wake of the digital. This inventive study argues that Lynch's plastic concept of life—supplemented by technology, media, and sensuous networks of an electric world—is more alive today than ever.


Author(s):  
Victoria L. Evans

The first truly interdisciplinary analysis to link Douglas Sirk’s striking visual aesthetic to key movements in twentieth century art and architecture, this book reveals how the exaggerated artifice of Sirk's formal style emerged from his detailed understanding of the artistic debates that raged in 1920s Europe and the post-war United States. By providing an extensive analysis of nine of this director's most pivotal works, including lengthy case studies of Final Chord (1936), Magnificent Obsession (1953), All That Heaven Allows (1954), The Tarnished Angels (1957) and Imitation of Life (1959), Victoria L. Evans demonstrates how Sirk attempted to dissolve the boundaries of the cinema by assimilating elements of avant-garde art, architecture and design into the colour, composition and settings of many of his most well-known films. Treating Sirk’s oeuvre as a continuum between his German and American periods, Evans argues that this influential director's non-naturalistic mise-en-scène was the result of an interdisciplinary, transnational dialogue, and she illuminates the broader cultural context in which his films appeared by establishing connections with archival documents, Modernist manifestos and the philosophical writings of his peers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-182
Author(s):  
Karen F. Quandt

Baudelaire refers in his first essay on Théophile Gautier (1859) to the ‘fraîcheurs enchanteresses’ and ‘profondeurs fuyantes’ yielded by the medium of watercolour, which invites a reading of his unearthing of a romantic Gautier as a prescription for the ‘watercolouring’ of his own lyric. If Paris's environment was tinted black as a spiking population and industrial zeal made their marks on the metropolis, Baudelaire's washing over of the urban landscape allowed vivid colours to bleed through the ‘fange’. In his early urban poems from Albertus (1832), Gautier's overall tint of an ethereal atmosphere as well as absorption of chaos and din into a lulling, muted harmony establish the balmy ‘mise en scène’ that Baudelaire produces at the outset of the ‘Tableaux parisiens’ (Les Fleurs du mal, 1861). With a reading of Baudelaire's ‘Tableaux parisiens’ as at once a response and departure from Gautier, or a meeting point where nostalgia ironically informs an avant-garde poetics, I show in this paper how Baudelaire's luminescent and fluid traces of color in his urban poems, no matter how washed or pale, vividly resist the inky plumes of the Second Empire.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Cristiano ◽  
Emilio Distretti

Augmented reality enables video game experiences that are increasingly immersive. For its focus on walking and exploration, Niantic’s location-based video game Pokémon Go (PG) has been praised for allowing players to foster their understanding and relationship to surrounding spaces. However, in contexts where space and movement are objects of conflicting narratives and restrictive policies on mobility, playing relies on the creation of partial imaginaries and limits to the exploratory experience. Departing from avant-garde conceptualizations of walking, this article explores the imaginary that PG creates in occupied East Jerusalem. Based on observations collected in various gaming sessions along the Green Line, it analyzes how PG’s virtual representation of Jerusalem legitimizes a status quo of separation and segregation. In so doing, this article argues that, instead of enabling an experience of augmented reality for its users, playing PG in East Jerusalem produces a diminished one.


Author(s):  
Emily Hughes

This chapter examines Pedro Almodóvar's mise-en-scène and cinematography. Almodóvar's mise-en-scène is rich with intertextual references, whether it be from high culture, through the pastiche of other films, or through the mise-en-scène and the symbolism of props and costume. Heavily used visual motifs, such as 'the Matador', occur frequently in Talk to Her (2002), perhaps in homage and parody of the traditional Spanish iconography encouraged under the Franco regime. Similarly, Almodóvar is renowned for drawing upon and being influenced by Hollywood directors of the 1950s, such as Alfred Hitchcock and Douglas Sirk, and one can see influences from both of these directors in the film through the performances, bright colour palettes, and themes. Like the melodrama films of the 1950s and like the cinema of Hitchcock, Almodóvar's unique and distinctive style is classified by a somewhat obsessive attention to mise-en-scène. This is most noticeable in the domestic settings. Almodóvar pays close attention to objects, colour, painting, and production design, much of which has deeper symbolism and meaning.


2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-186
Author(s):  
Richard Weston

It has taken a long time to be able to assess Jørn Utzon's importance. Until the end of the twentieth century, the architect described by Sigfried Giedion as the most important of the ‘third generation’ hardly appeared in its literature. By contrast we had no such problem with Le Corbusier: there were the Oeuvres Complètes. It was easy to consult any building, indeed sketch, and along the way to be thoroughly coerced into his theoretical position. His massive and megalomaniac contribution to the last century could be studied first through L'Esprit Nouveau, the avant-garde magazine which promulgated him – ‘17.23, 2me février, 1926, Grande Pensée de L-C …’ and so forth – and later through the archives and sketchbooks. Wright suffered from too many publications. After the Wasmuth Portfolio of 1910 there was no single, accessible reference to his huge output: his theory tended to the verbose, and he was devious in concealing his own sources, most especially his debt to Japan. Mies van der Rohe wrote little and was famously gnomic; his buildings supplied his ‘text’. The so-called second generation, Aalto and Kahn, were well served in terms of publication of their work. The former's theoretical position took much posthumous teasing-out by critics to become widely understood. He could overcome people's ignorance of Finnish – for example, by his 1961 definition ‘acoustic separation is kilograms’ and by his stupefied reaction to the question of what module he used: ‘a millimetre, more or less!’ – but he wrote little.


Author(s):  
Miguel Angel De la Cova Morillo

Resumen: El “mouleur” Charles Lasnon representa la convivencia que durante el primer tercio del siglo XX se dará entre las Artes y Oficios y las nuevas técnicas de representación vinculadas a la fotografía. Lasnon realizará para Le Corbusier una serie de maquetas que presentarán sus propuestas a escala doméstica y urbana, primera aproximación a una expresión tridimensional de sus teorías: los modelos 1:20 de los Salones de Otoño en 1922 y 1923, a camino entre el objet-type y la escultura de vanguardia, y las del “Urbanisme á trois dimensions” del Plan Obus y Nemours. Las maquetas de las Villas se establecerán como “manifiestos estéticos y arquitectónicos”. En ellas se ensayarán principios teóricos plásticos, previos incluso a una idea de construcción, indagaciones que abren la puerta a transferencias entre la representación a escala realizada en yeso y la arquitectura a realizar. Por otra parte, la vinculación de Lasnon con el Service Geographique de l’Armée le familiarizará con las nuevas técnicas de representación del territorio. Así, realizará los Carte-Relief de Argel coetáneamente a la ejecución de las maquetas de las propuestas urbanas argelinas de Le Corbusier, garantes no sólo del rigor geométrico de sus postulados: quedan en ellas registradas el paisaje original, cuya topografía se modela y manipula como si de un trabajo plástico se tratara. Utopías en busca de un lugar imaginado sobre un trozo de yeso. Abstract: Charles Lasnon, "mouleur",represents the coexistence between the Arts and Crafts and the new rendering techniques related to photography that took place in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Commissioned by Le Corbusier, Lasnon made in those years several models that represent his new proposals at a domestic and urban scale. That was the first approach to a three-dimensional expression of his theories –the scale models of 1:20 from "Salon d'Automne" in 1922 and 1923, which were halfway between objet-types and avant-garde sculptures, and the theories of "L'Urbanisme à trois dimensions" from Plan Obus and Nemours. The scale-models of "Villas" were established as “aesthetic and architectural manifestos”. They were used to test theoretical and plastic principles, formulated before the idea of construction. These tests resulted in "transfers" between plaster-craft scale models and the architecture to be built. Additionally, the links between Lasnon and the “Service Geographique de l’Armée” enabled him to be familiar with new techniques to represent landscape. Thus, Lasnon made the Carte-Reliefs d'Argel at the same time as Le Corbusier made the models for the urban proposals in Alger. These models not only guarantee the geometrical accuracy of his proposals, but also capture an original landscape whose topography is modeled as if it was a plastic craftwork. Utopias seeking an imaginary place on a plaster slice.  Palabras clave: maqueta; moulage; Charles Lasnon; urbanismo; plan-relief; Salón de Otoño. Keywords: model; "moulage", Charles Lasnon; urbanism; plan-relief; Salon d'Automne. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/LC2015.2015.729


Author(s):  
Yu. N. Denysenko ◽  

For a better understanding of architectural processes taking place today in-depth analysis and search of useful achievements the creation of objects of material culture of the past and their introduction in our days, for successful attempts to predict thecourse of history, civilization, society, urban planning, architecture, art, required a comprehensive analysis of factors of influence on the specified development, which took place in the historical past, takes place in our time can take place in the future. Our time of the domination of ideology of enrichment, the actual service utilizing architecture and design ideas for the commercial benefit of certain customers, leads to losses of valuable historical material heritage, leads to the creation of objects of material culture that are not only useful, but often very dangerous both for people and for the environment. For a better understanding of why such processes are characteristic of our time than were the differences in the approaches to urban, architectural and other design industries in the past, will change, and what to expect and strive for in the future, need to better understand the influence of society on the features of formation of certain types of buildings and structures in certain times and certain States.The article examines the impact previously identified by the author types of companies, classified according to the principles of their existence on processes of emergence and dominance of certain types of buildings and structures (on the example of the development of societies and States located on the territory of the settlement of the Eastern Slavs on the territory of modern Ukraine, which are quite revealing to illustrate the viability of the concept). Although even a superficial analysisof the development of societies in other European countries also points to the similarity of historical and architectural processes that had and have a place (with certain national differences) and confirm the validity of the proposed concept.Distinguishing in previous works four basic types of necessities of people and functions of society, and also four types of principles of existence of society, the author proposes to use four types of society, according to main principles of their existence.An author considers that for the names of the marked types of societies it is better to use the names of the Indian castes. Therefore exactly the names of the Indian castes better than the names of public classes represent principles of existence and ideology bothseparate groups people and separate societies.


Author(s):  
Luciane Scotta

Resumen: Este artículo presenta una reflexión acerca del edificio del Ministerio de Educación y Salud, en Rio de Janeiro/ Brasil – un proyecto de varios arquitectos brasileños con la colaboración de Le Corbusier. El objetivo es analizar el procesos de la obra a partir de la comparación de tres publicaciones: Œuvre Complete 1934-1938, Brazil Builds: Architecture New and Old: 1652-1942 y Œuvre Complete 1938-1946. Con el análisis de estos tres libros se presenta una visión completa desde el proceso de diseño hasta el final de la construcción. Es decir, puede ser vista la creación de un edificio. Mientras que el primer libro muestra un proyecto incipiente, en la etapa de progreso de ideas y propuestas, el segundo - Brazil Builds - presenta la construcción en proceso. Finalmente, el último libro muestra el diseño final y las fotografías del edificio ya construido, sólo un año después de su finalización. Abstract: This paper discusses the Ministry of Education & Health building in Rio de Janeiro/Brazil - a project developed by several Brazilian architects in collaboration with Le Corbusier. The aim is to analyze the working process by comparing three publications: Œuvre Complete 1934-1938, Brazil Builds: Architecture New and Old: 1652-1942 and Œuvre Complete 1938-1946. The analysis of these three books presents a complete outlook of the building’s design, from its beginning up to its construction. In other words, one can see the creation of a building. While the first book introduces the project in an incipient stage, going through the progress of elaborating ideas and proposals, the second - Brazil Builds - presents the construction process of the building. Finally, the last book presents the final design and photographs of the building already built, just a year after being finished.Palabras clave: Brazil Builds; Le Corbusier; Arquitectura moderna brasileña. Keywords: Brazil Builds; Le Corbusier, Brazilian Modern Architecture. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/LC2015.2015.567 


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lilia Mironov

Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, the emergence of airports as gateways for their cities has turned into one of the most important architectural undertakings. Ever since the first manned flight by the Brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright on December 17th 1903, utilitarian sheds next to landing strips on cow pastures evolved into a completely new building type over the next few decades – into places of Modernism as envisioned by Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright (who themselves never built an airport), to eventually turn into icons of cultural identity, progress and prosperity. Many of these airports have become architectural branding devices of their respective cities, regions and countries, created by some of the most notable contemporary architects. This interdisciplinary cultural study deals with the historical formation and transformation of the architectural typology of airports under the aspect of spatial theories. This includes the shift from early spaces of transportation such as train stations, the synesthetic effect of travel and mobility and the effects of material innovations on the development, occupation and use of such spaces. The changing uses from mere utilitarian transportation spaces to ones centered on the spectacular culture of late capitalism, consumption and identity formation in a rapidly changing global culture are analyzed with examples both from architectural and philosophical points of view. The future of airport architecture and design very much looks like the original idea of the Crystal Palace and Parisian Arcades: to provide a stage for consumption, social theatre and art exhibition.


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