Moving Images - Static Spaces: Architectures, Art, Media, Film, Digital Art and Design
• Paper / Proposal Title:
The City, the Car and Filmic Perception – An examination of Cross Fertilization in Late 20th century Architectural Design and Theory
• Author(s) Name:
Dr Raymond Pauls; Dr Mike Martins; Prof Doreen Peters
• University or Company Affiliation:
Liverpool John Moores University; University of Saldringham; Dundee Polytechnic University
• Presentation Method. I would like to:
i. present in person (with/without a written paper)
ii. present via pre-recorded film (with/without a written paper)
iii. present via skype (with/without a written paper)
iv. submit a written paper only (and not attend/present)
DELETE those not relevant.
• Abstract (300 words):
This paper examines the similarities between ideas on architectural presentation and design contained in the seminal work of Robert Venturi, Learning from Las Vegas, 1972 and the cult classic of Michelangelo Antonioni, Zabriskie Point, 1970. Central to Venturi’s 1972 work was the argument that the contemporary U.S. city had been designed according to the logic of the automobile and was thus designed to be perceived in motion. From that starting point he began a reconsideration of architectural design and the tools used in its presentation. Drawn plans, sections and elevations were considered to be incapable of representing the phenomenological experience of the modern city in motion. Consequently, they did not facilitate its appropriate design. His answer was to propose the use of collage as an architectural design and thinking tool.
This paper looks at Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point from this perspective. It argues that two years prior to the publication of Venturi’s work, this film offered an insight into the power of the cinematic medium as an appropriate representational device. More capable than drawn plans, sections or even collages at capturing the true experience of the city in motion it is argued that it went considerably further than Venturi´s seminal text in understanding cities like Las Vegas or Los Angeles, the city in which the film is set. It thus argues that by failing to make the leap from the flat static visual representation of the collage to the sequential, continuous and / fragmented representation of film Learning from Las Vegas missed an important opportunity for advancing the use of alternative media in architectural design and thinking. It is an opportunity that has still yet to be taken up.
• Author(s) Biography (200 words each):
Dr Raymond Pauls is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture at University College London. He teaches design and technological innovation with relation contemporary city redevelopment. He has published extensively in various international journals and has delivered multiple conference papers. He has two books. His doctoral thesis studied the representation of the city in late 20th Century UK film. He has worked as a consultant on films and in the television industries and has practiced as an architect for twenty years.
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