Mock-Ups in Close-Up (Gabu Heindl and Drehli Robnik, 2008) is a comprehensive overview of one of the least-explored territories in the relationship
between architecture and cinema. 80 different clips, all including
architectural models, are collated to become, in themselves, an
80-minute movie that includes
sequences from films produced between 1927 and 2007.
Although it contains some obvious classics, such as Housing Problems [1935], King Vidor´s The Fountainhead [1948] and Peter Greenaway´s
Belly of an Architect [1987], this compilation does not primarily deal with "films about architecture". Rather, it offers a section through
an all-inclusive film history which, in the project's re-writing,
appears to be obsessed with showing models in a variety of contexts: be
it on the
fringes or in the center of a scene, models pop up in love stories, thrillers, psychological dramas, comedies or sci-fi.
The films compiled include arthouse and blockbuster fare, "auteur
cinema" as well as contributions to film franchises such as the Dr.
Mabuse,
James Bond, Dirty Harry, Death Wish, Indiana Jones, Robocop, Austin Powers and X-Men cycles.
The list of filmmakers who could not resist to either pan over or to
focus on architectural models includes Fritz Lang, King Vidor, Sergio
Leone,
Alain Resnais, Sam Fuller, Arthur Penn, Robert Aldrich, Michelangelo
Antonioni, Francis Ford Coppola, Don Siegel, Stanley Kubrick,
Margarethe von Trotta, Robert Zemeckis, Penny Marshall, Peter
Greenaway, Oliver Stone, Tim Burton, Steven Spielberg, Ben Stiller,
the Farrelly Brothers, and Wes Anderson.
March 28, 6.30pm: Author's presentation followed by
open discussion with Beatriz Colomina. Their talk will raise some key
questions on film history,
archiving, "photogénie" and specific typologies of architectural models
and the roles they play in movies from an architect or urbanist´s point
of view.
