In the last decades, architecture has embraced the medium of film to explore new readings of spaces and atmospheres. Crafting a visual narrative of the underlying design concepts while also establishing a connection with the viewer, architecture films use cinematic camera movements and carefully curated sound designs to convey emotion and create a compelling impression of the built object. The article looks into architecture films as a means of capturing the experience of a space, with films by 9sekunden, a team of young designers who combine their passions for film and architecture into an alternative means of exploring architectural atmospheres.
Architecture and film have an almost symbiotic relationship, which has long fascinated architects and has been the topic of numerous books and articles. In Montage and Architecture, director Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein underlines how the montage technique is cinema's analogue for architecture's use of spatial sequences. Conversely, Bernard Tschumi has cited cinema and the Soviet technique of the montage as the inspiration for Parc d la Villette in Paris. The two fields are inextricably linked, and just as cinema cannot be devoid of spatial context, the way film makes use of built space, light, scale and framing provides the profession with an essential source of inspiration. Moreover, cinema inadvertently registered the evolution of architecture and the urban fabric through the 20th century, thus becoming a fascinating archive for the field of architecture.
Since the 1970s, architecture has sought inspiration outside of its field, within different art forms, with the aim of expanding the realm of architectural thought. The medium of the film proved to be the closest to architecture, as both create and articulate lived space. As noted by Juhani Pallasmaa in The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema, "both architecture and cinema imply a kinaesthetic way of experiencing space". This perception led to the adoption of film in architecture, giving rise to a proliferation of architecture films and dedicated architecture festivals. The medium of film has blended seamlessly into the landscape of architectural representation as a form of storytelling. Architecture films depict a carefully curated view of architecture, conveying its essence and design intent through a language understood worldwide. Through the camera lens, architectural spaces are no longer passive, and everything presents itself under a new light. Architecture is also making use of another quality of the film: its ability to convey emotion.
Creating an architecture film entails assembling a script of spatial sequences and building the visual story that would best explain the architecture, making it accessible to everyone, regardless of language and culture. The German multidisciplinary team of 9sekunden has delved into the realm of architecture films, assembling spatial narratives and capturing the atmosphere of built spaces. Through its comprehensive photographic and film investigations, the team has developed a sensitive approach to revealing the essence of a place. Sound design often plays an essential role in crafting architecture films. In the work of 9 Sekunden, subtle sounds of wind, birds, musical notes, the echo of footsteps or people's voices reveal another layer of the place's atmosphere.
In architecture, "atmosphere" is an elusive term, which is best explained as a distinct quality of a place, born out of the interaction of the individual with the architecture. Peter Zumthor describes it in his Atmospheres book as "this singular density and mood, this feeling of presence, well-being, harmony, beauty ... under whose spell I experience what I otherwise would not experience in precisely this way." Highly personal in a question of sensibility, spatial atmospheres portrayed on film are as much the expression of the architecture as they are the curated and intentional view of the filmmaker. In scripting the journey through and around architectural spaces and designing the sound, architects and filmmakers shape the user's impression of the space once more.
