Architecture and Film
Featured Speaker: Diane Kane, Ph.D., AICP
Diane Kane, Ph.D., AICP
This four-part lecture series will examine the parallel and often intertwined disciplines of architecture and film. While architecture and the “built environment” have long influenced motion pictures, film has reciprocally influenced modern architectural practice and design. Both disciplines manipulate space, light and sound, navigate space through time and use point of view to produce narrative. With widespread availability of cellphone cameras, who is a filmmaker and what is a subject for photography are globally democratized. Architecture excels at placemaking for human connectivity and use. This lecture series explores the design similarities and psychological tensions inherent in film, architecture, technology and modernity.
July 10: Architecture and Early Film Experimentation (1890s–1930s)
Architects have often designed theatrical and film sets along with actual buildings for everyday use. This lecture focuses on early use of real buildings in movies, as well as the design and construction of studio sets in which real buildings are replicated or far-fetched ones imagined. Technical advances in film, cameras, film studios and movie-viewing venues complete this historical overview of architectural precedents and their use in film.
July 24: The Golden Age of Hollywood (1930s–1950s)
Hollywood soon became the global focus of the film industry. Predictable weather, diverse scenery, Bohemian emigres and new wealth fueled a growing city where film fantasy and gritty reality overlapped.The studio system, sound stages and set design flourished. Technicolor introduced vibrant color schemes and celluloid Modernism was projected into theatrical movie palaces. Rural backlots continued into the TV era, while Disneyland, Universal Studios and Homes of the Stars became world-famous tourist attractions.
August 7: Architectural and Film Innovation (1970s–1990s)
This lecture explores how late twentieth-century advances in computer technology and space-age materials influenced architecture, film, design theory and modern life. Topics include the influence of video in TV news, documentaries and art films; architectural use of models and set design in urban planning and festival retail; Post-Modern architectural techniques of fragmentation, collision, adjacency, superimposition and transparency; and special effects using these design techniques for action, Sci-fi and horror films.
August 21: Digital Technology in Architecture and Film (1990s–2020s)
Computer Generated Images and Computer Aided Design extend creativity, build the impossible and confound reality in both disciplines. Models, green screens and fabricated sets blur the division between the real and the imaginary in film. Yet Virtual Reality and 3-D design aid architects in communicating reality with clients, colleagues and the general public. We explore the good, bad and ugly of disruptive visual technologies in contemporary life.
Presenter Biography
Diane Kane, an architectural historian, is a retired Senior Planner for the City of San Diego. Previously, she was the Heritage Resources Coordinator for Caltrans in Los Angeles. She is a six-term Trustee of the California Preservation Foundation and chairs the Preservation Committee of the La Jolla Historical Society. A popular lecturer at Osher, she has also taught architectural history and planning at several southland universities. She received her Ph.D. in architectural history from UC Santa Barbara.
Coordinator: Steve Clarey
7/10/2024 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
B/355 and C/360
7/24/2024 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
B/355 and C/360
8/7/2024 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
B/355 and C/360
8/21/2024 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
B/355 and C/360
Included with membership, no registration required.
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