Built as Rain. Film Analysis of Unbuildable Architectural Speculations – a Case Study of „Instant City” (dir. Peter Cook and Ron Herron, 1968) and „The Zero Theorem” (dir. Terry Gilliam, 2013)

Maciej Stasiowski

zibi46@tlen.pl
independent researcher (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3123-6027

Abstract

The introduction of time-based media into the design stage opened up a new understanding of architectural and represented space as a dematerialized, dynamic, and user-dependent concept. Unbuildable architectural projects always relied on specific techniques and media. Their radical nature usually channelled innovative artistic currents and visualization tools, like collage and pop art aesthetics in the works of Archigram. Cinema is yet another ground for such deliberations. With Instant City (Archigram’s Peter Cook and Ron Herron) and The Zero Theorem (Terry Gilliam) the problem of dematerialization is being channelled by architectural/spatial proposals that involve a range of literary tropes, cultural texts, and filmic intertexts, in order to create a rich embroidery of references that forward a new look upon architectural production as a practice of creating protocols for dynamic and all the more elusive imagery. This article’s central objective lies in the task of reframing a discussion on iconicity, media facades, and mutative building skins, so as to include modes of cinematic portrayal that are not just contents of architectural “messages”, but also their “media”.


Keywords:

architecture, Archigram, Terry Gilliam, space representation

Attoe, W., Logan, D. (1989). American Urban Architecture: Catalysts in the Design of Cities. Berkeley – Los Angeles: University of California Press.
  Google Scholar

Cabral, C. P. C. (2013). The Architecture of Absence: Building, Landscape and the Changing Character of Technology in the Post-war Era. In: P. J. da Sousa Cruz (ed.), Structures and Architecture: New Concepts, Applications and Challenges (pp. 417-422). Boca Raton: CRC Press.
  Google Scholar

Carmona, M. (2010). Public Places, Urban Spaces: The Dimensions of Urban Design. Amsterdam – Boston: Routledge.
  Google Scholar

Coleman, N. (2005). Utopias and Architecture. New York: Routledge.
  Google Scholar

Cook, P. (ed.) (1999). Archigram. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
  Google Scholar

Cook, P. et al. (ed.) (2000). Archigram, Instant City. In: M. Miles, T. Hall, I. Borden (eds.), The City Cultures Reader (pp. 125-128). London – New York: Routledge.
  Google Scholar

Cridge, N. P. (2015). Drawing the Unbuildable: Seriality and Reproduction in Architecture. London – New York: Routledge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315764443   Google Scholar

Crompton, D. (2003). A Guide to Archigram 1961-74. New York: Garden City Publishing.
  Google Scholar

de Wall, M. (2017). The Hackable City: Citymaking in a Platform Society. Architectural Design (4D Hyperlocal: A Cultural Toolkit for the Open-Source City), 87 (1), pp. 50-57.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ad.2131   Google Scholar

Franck, K. A. (2016). Introduction: Designing with Time in Mind. Architectural Design (Architecture Timed: Designing with Time in Mind), 86 (1), pp. 8-17.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ad.1996   Google Scholar

Gilliam, T. (2015). Gilliamesque: A Pre-posthumous Memoir. Edinburgh – London: Cannongate.
  Google Scholar

Greenfield, A. (2017). Practices of the Minimum Viable Utopia. Architectural Design (4D Hyperlocal: A Cultural Toolkit for the Open-Source City), 87 (1), pp. 16-25.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ad.2127   Google Scholar

Konomi, S., Roussos, G. (2017). Enriching Urban Spaces with Ambient Computing, the Internet of Things, and Smart City Design. Hershey: IGI Global.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0827-4   Google Scholar

Lynch, K. (1960). The Image of the City. Cambridge – London: The MIT Press.
  Google Scholar

Richards, J. (1994). Facadism. London – New York: Routledge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203308684   Google Scholar

Sadler, S. (2005). Archigram: Architecture Without Architecture. Cambridge – London: The MIT Press.
  Google Scholar

Sennott, R. S. (ed.) (2004). Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Architecture (vol. 1: A-F). New York – London: Fitzroy Dearborn.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203483886   Google Scholar

Shields, J. A. E. (2014). Collage and Architecture. New York – London: Routledge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315883199   Google Scholar

Song, H., Srinivasan, R., Sookoor, T., Jeschke, S. (eds.) (2017). Smart Cities: Foundations, Principles, and Applications. New York: Wiley.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119226444   Google Scholar

Spiller, N. (2007). Visionary Architecture: Blueprints of the Modern Imagination. London: Thames and Hudson.
  Google Scholar

Steiner, H. A. (2009). Beyond Archigram: The Structure of Circulation. New York – London: Routledge.
  Google Scholar

Stimmel, C. L. (2016). Building Smart Cities: Analytics, ICT, and Design Thinking. London – New York: CRC Press.
  Google Scholar

Venturi, R. (1966). Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
  Google Scholar

Venturi, R., Scott Brown, D., Izenour, S. (1972). Learning from Las Vegas. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
  Google Scholar

Weiser, M. (1991). The Computer for the 21st Century. Scientific American, 265 (3), pp. 94-104.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0991-94   Google Scholar

Wilhelm, K. (1997). This Lanthorn Doth the Horned Moon Present. In: E. Louis, S. Zecher-Heilingsetzer, J. Pacher (eds.), Archigram. Symposium zur Ausstellung (pp. 41-55). Klagenfurt: Ritter Verlag.
  Google Scholar

Download


Published
2020-05-25

Cited by

Stasiowski, M. (2020) “Built as Rain. Film Analysis of Unbuildable Architectural Speculations – a Case Study of „Instant City” (dir. Peter Cook and Ron Herron, 1968) and „The Zero Theorem” (dir. Terry Gilliam, 2013)”, Kwartalnik Filmowy, (109), pp. 159–176. doi: 10.36744/kf.279.

Authors

Maciej Stasiowski 
zibi46@tlen.pl
independent researcher Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3123-6027

PhD in arts and humanities; graduate of the Institute of Audiovisual Arts at the Faculty of Management and Social Communication, Jagiellonian University in Krakow. His academic interests include time-based techniques of audiovisual representation (live action and animated film, installation art, new media), and their role in experimental architectural projects. He published articles in ARCH, Ekrany, TransMissions and Kultura i Historia; the author of a book on Peter Greenaway’s literary influences entitled Atlas rzeczy niestałych [The Atlas of All Things Inconstant] (2014).



Statistics

Abstract views: 439
PDF downloads: 442


License

Copyright (c) 2020 Maciej Stasiowski

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The author grants the publisher a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Kwartalnik Filmowy, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Kwartalnik Filmowy should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). The journal is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. By submitting an article, the author agrees to make it available under this licence.

In issues from 105-106 (2019) to 119 (2022) all articles were published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in „Kwartalnik Filmowy”, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.