This week we want to propose the 1998 Alex Proya’s film considered part of the neo-noir sci-fi movement. The movie shows a city that is an experiment in itself, in which the entire place have been forced to maintain in darkness. A work that make us remember classics as Metropolis or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Do you think there are some places like this nowadays? Do you imagine it as a possible future? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

The Architect, is not a renowned film. We have to admit that there’s not that much unique about it in terms of cinematography. However, for us the plot of this movie is quite relevant. The director uses an specific example, one built utopian residential complex in United States to illustrate the issues that were not considered during design of these uniformity-driven blocks.

Tell us your thoughts about this topic, and what is the kind of responsibility that relies on architects, or on the whole profession of architecture?

As the world turns its eyes to London in 2012, Design Stories examines the architecture and engineering behind the 2012 sporting venues. It provides a unique Olympic experience – a place where people can explore and view drawings, images, videos and amazingly detailed models of London’s key new sporting venues.

The Chemical Brothers composed a song entitled “Velodrome”, for which Crystal has created a three minute animated sequence promotional video to match its heart-pounding rhythms. Played in the Velodrome before every session, the video inspired by Hopkins Architects’ design, shows the venue as never before, literally pulsating with excitement.

Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer whose work is focused on industrial (and post- industrial) landscapes. His pictures were so inspiring that moved Jennifer Baichwal in 2004 to record a documentary based on them. The result is an impressive film full of really powerful images that questions the limits between natural and artificial.

It seems to be a premonitory view of the current development issues, where the scale of industrialisation processes is such large that is capable to generate a whole new environment. A totally new landscape.

Let us know about your ideas of these “manufactured landscapes” and what can we do with these spaces afterwards?

As part of the ‘Valtari’ Mystery film experiment of the Icelandic band Sigur Rós, the video for Varúð was released few days ago. Directed by Ryan McGingley, it shows New York in a magnificent way as we architects would like to move around.

This week we want to introduce a film by one of the filmmakers that cannot be out of this list. We’re talking about Jacques Tati, the French director, writer, and actor that made his first color movie in 1958, ”Mon Oncle”.

Tati shows how the modern age affects and dramatically changes the way that people live. All the new technologies at that moment are incorporated in the scenes, were the interaction between this new concept of “modern spaces” and people is an element present in most of the movie.

What do you think about this approach of how modernity influenced (or still influencing) the way of living of our societies?

The exhibition is opened from last Wednesday July 25th and will run until August 15th. Curated by Urban Zen & Nomad Two Worlds, ‘Discover Haiti’ features art, accessories, clothing and home furnishings designed and produced in Haiti.

The collection comprises the work of craftsmen in small objects, pictures, and also the projects of refurbishment and reconstruction of buildings destroyed by the last 2010 earthquake.

70.8% of the earth’s surface is water and Shanghai is approaching a point of overflow. Future development will require the inhabitation of this surface area. In addition to a fascinating physical property caused by the surface tension of water, the meniscus is a strikingly relevant metaphor for the urban predicament of contemporary. As an urban metaphor, the meniscus is associated with periphery, threshold, development, and tension.

Koyaanisqatsi is the first from a saga of three films directed by Godfrey Reggio. Followed by Powaqqatsi (Life in Transformation) and Naqoyqatsi (Life as War), Koyaanisqatsi got the subtitle of “Life Out of Balance”, showing us only through impressive images the confrontation between natural and human development processes.

The film frames urban landscapes in their different types, commercial, residential, industrial, or infrastructural, as an infinite repetition against nature. Talking somehow, already in the ’80, about the environmental issues that the development model represents in the way it was deployed at that moment.

What do you think about the current development model, have this changed from the last decades or still breaking the balance with nature?

Mehruss Jon Ahi and Armen Karaoghlanian combined their educational backgrounds with Interiors, an online journal that marries architecture and film.

Interiors is an online journal, published on the 15th of each month, in which films are analyzed and diagrammed in terms of space. Interiors focuses on how space is used throughout a particular scene and how the architecture of the film impacts its narratives and characters.

This was an unprecedented year for Tsinghua University’s Non-Linear Parametric Workshop with close to 200 students attending. Students of the Advanced Design Unit taught by Daniel Gillen, Xu Feng with assistance by Andrew Haas investigated parametric software, thought processes and strategy with a specific focus on versioning.

The tutors’ sequenced information provided to students to encourage a scientific level of variable testing and analysis.  The nine-day workshop was organized into three parts, beginning with abstract versioning, followed by a pavilion, and concluding with a product.

We come back to the 1950s to remember one of the great masters of modern film making, Alfred Hitchcock. In Rear Window, most of the scenes are recorded from the limited view of one single room. Things within a housing complex seems to work fine for everyone but not for this photographer that is forced to see the world from the same perspective every day.

Let us know what are your thoughts about this classic Hitchcock’s work and we wait for any recommendation for keep going with the list!

This week we propose you to see this interesting film that came to the big screen from the sci-fi animation serie of the same name. Locations for the movie were carefully selected to generate the futuristic environment where the story takes place. Recorded mainly in Germany, from a crematorium and parks, to an embassy and a world cultures centre were used in the different scenes.

I guess most of our readers already know this movie. If not, it is time for you to find it, enjoy a great film and tell us your thoughts!

The first film of George Lucas is without any doubt a master piece in terms of how to represent futuristic spaces. In THX 1138 the underground spaces are absolutely controlled. People’s behavior is driven by different drugs depending on the physical effect required. The movie contained a catalogue of spatial experiences and explore new forms of spaces that are many years forward the ’70 ideas.

We invite you to enjoy this magnificent film and let us know your comments below!

Equilibrium shows a city of the future where all feelings have been suppressed in order to avoid war. Any means of expression that could urge a sensorial response is censored and terminated. Diversity and free thinking have been replaced by uniformity and an unquestionable authority of a “Father”, who guides lives in this new society. The entire city organization is prepared for accommodating spaces needed by the administration, including public space for citizens to congregate, and several kinds of facilities for control.

Do you think we could deal with this kind of cities in the future, or maybe they already exist? As always, we wait for you to enjoy it and let us know your thoughts in comments.

From next Friday 22nd will take place the AA Projects Review Exhibition. The place of the event is located in the Architectural Association’s main building at 36 Bedford Square, London WC1B3ES.

Projects Review offers an overview of the AA’s 2011/12 acadamic year. On display are hundreds of drawings, models, installations, phogographs and other materials documenting the diversity and experimental nature of the AA School.

‘At the AA architecture is pursued as a form of cultural knowledge, across year-long design projects and portfolios. We believe that truly great schools don’t just nurture and support architectural talent: they build audiences for experimentation, out of which new architectural ideas, visions and projects emerge. Please join us as part of this audience, which the AA remains committed to promoting at the cutting edge of architectural cuture, practice and learning.’

The access to this Friday event required invitation but will be free the rest of the days until 14th July.

More images after the break

Not that many films can have the amount of high-end architecture as location for their scenes. In “The International” the characters goes to a secondary position – through architects’ eyes - since the movie is a showroom of well known buildings and cities.

The mythic Guggenheim Museum in New York by Frank Lloyd Wright serves as the space for one of the main scenes, jumping to the Phaeno Science Center by Zaha Hadid in Wolfsburg, Germany. Cities where the movie was filmed include Istanbul, Berlin, Lyon, Milan, and New York, showing us an impressive catalogue of “international” architecture.

Let us know your thoughts about the movie and international architecture. What does this concept mean today? Or was it only an utopian modern movement?