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ARCHITECTURE | MONTAGEMICHAEL HARTWELL | EPFL ENAC MASTER THESIS | JANUARY 2013

INCORPORATING THE TOOLS OF THE FILMMAKER IN THE DESIGN PROCESS OF THE ARCHITECT

Under the supervision of :

Prof. George Abou Jaoudé

Prof. Urs Egg

Teresa Cheung Sze Wing

Font:

Myriad Pro Condensed

EPFL ENAC SAR MA3 / January 20134

MANIFESTO

EXCERPTS ON MONTAGE

THE SITE

THE FILM

REFERENCES

ARCHITECTURE | MONTAGEINCORPORATING THE TOOLS OF THE FILMMAKER IN THE DESIGN PROCESS OF THE ARCHITECT

5

MANIFESTO

Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, Un Chien Andalou

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“One day, you decide to study architecture. You learn to draw plans, sections and

axonometrics; make models; discover structure, materials, and even composition.

Still, you feel that there is something missing in much of what you read and learn.

You are aware that architecture uses sophisticated means of notation - elevation,

axonometrics, perspective views, and so on. But you soon realize that they don’t tell you

anything about sound, smell, touch, or the movement of bodies through space. (...)

The limits of my language are the limits of my world.”

Bernard Tschumi / Architecture Concepts

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In an age of facilitated access to knowledge and mean on any given fi eld of practice, one

cannot overlook the benefi ts of learning from other disciplines that could potentially

enrich one’s own fi eld of practice.

The following thesis aims to investigate on a mean that might become a trend in the

following years of architectural design.

The world of the image, widely studied in the fi elds of photography, illustration,

painting, sculpture, design, fi lmmaking, etc... plays a signifi cant role in architectural

design, thus bringing the architect into studying these fi elds.

Why Filmmaking?

Film, Video, Cinema, Motion Picture is deeply impregnated in our culture more than

ever before; consumed worldwide, it is also becoming extremely accessible to the mass

population. With portable devices capable of recording at a 1080p full HD resolution,

anybody could potentially embrace the world of fi lmmaking.

Currently used in architecture as a simple recording or rendering tool, one can easily

speculate that fi lmmaking could very well join the design tools and most importantly,

the design process of the architect in the near future...

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“The cameraman, intervenes with what we see in a way which a painting can never do. It

directs the eye towards a specifi c place and a specifi c story; at the same time it is radical

and revolutionary it is also totalitarian. It guides us to a particular side of a story and leaves

other parts out. It dulls our perception towards the work of art and introduces distraction

as a mode of reception. (...)

Let us compare the screen on which a fi lm unfolds with the canvas of a painting. The

painting invites the spectator to contemplation; before it the spectator can abandon

himself to his associations. Before the movie frame he cannot do so. No sooner has his eye

grasped a scene than it is already changed. It cannot be arrested….The spectator’s process

of association in the view of these images is indeed interrupted by their constant, sudden

change. (...)

How does the cameraman compare with the painter? The painter maintains in his work

a natural distance from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There is a

tremendous diff erence between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one,

that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new

law.”

Walter Benjamin / The Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction

“Space without time is a picture.”

Olafur Eliasson

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The world of fi lmmaking encompassed a wide variety of disciplines:

Scriptwriting, storyboarding, set design, location scouting, camera operating, camera

movement, framing, editing, compositing, post-production, lighting, directing,

producing, acting, ...

One could fi nd conceptual opportunities for architecture in any of these fi elds thus being

exposed to an infi nite amount of possibilities and confusion. To avoid getting lost, an

attempt was made to pull out elements that are true to fi lmmaking, less likely to be

shared/confused with other practices of the image such as photography.

As a result, the thesis research was narrowed down to the aspect of MONTAGE, widely

explored in the works of Walter Benjamin, Sergei Eisenstein, Jean-Luc Godard and the

associations that Bernard Tschumi made between Architecture and Filmmaking.

However, the thesis does not reformulate these works, but is a catalogue of excerpts and

quotes that are to be considered and further investigated in a subsequent architectural

project.

The main focus of “ARCHITECTURE | MONTAGE” is the making of an 18min fi lm of

documentary nature in which fi lm technique and theory of MONTAGE are explored and

put into practice as well as a cinematographic experimentation and documentation of a

chosen site of intervention.

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EXCERPTS ON MONTAGE

Sergei Eisenstein

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“Architecture has always represented the prototype of a work of art reception of which is

consummated by the collectivity in a state of distraction. (...) Architecture is an art form

received passively.”

Walter Benjamin

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“Walter Benjamin was aware of the constant complication of seeing as the modern world

we live in creates a continuous layer of complexity beyond immediate comprehension.

Architecture is loosing the battle of the image in a media culture that is becoming more

distracted and promoting more passivity. (...)

The fi lm camera could provide a new way of thinking about and looking at the city; a

way to critically apprehend what seems to have become culturally invisible; to achieve an

understanding of self in relation to others in the social space we inhabit.

The camera intervenes with the resources of it’s lowerings and liftings, it’s interruptions and

isolations, it’s extensions and accelerations.

Fragmentation becomes a way of understanding the modern world, montage becomes it’s

essential tool.

Sergei Eisenstein believed that the introduction of discontinuity in the montage would force

the spectator to engage an internal work of interpretation and thinking, thus propelling

him into active thinking.”

Aaron Taylor Harvey / Cinematequetonics

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Dialectical Montage

Alphaville, Jean-Luc Godard, 1965

I. DIALECTICAL MONTAGE

“Sergei Eisenstein, who defi ned the term MONATGE and was it’s most passionate defender,

practiced what is known as dialectical montage. The shots appear to collide forcing a

viewer to engage their powers of reason to create the necessary connections that bring

meaning. A fi lm can present a fragmented data set with confi dence, as the human mind

has no choice but to construct a whole.

In “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, Walter Benjamin said that talkies and

architecture were both art forms received passively, but Eisenstein clearly believed that this

passivity could be disrupted through the perpetual interjection of discontinuous imagery

forcing the spectator to “mount” each successive shot.

Montage is not simply the technique of cutting shots together, it is a dynamic system for

the expression of ideas.”


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Continuity Editing

Ferris Bueler’s Day Off , John Hughes, 1985

II. CONTINUITY EDITING

“The editing is not the central concern of the fi lm. Editing is actually used against itself, as

an attempt to make the spectator ignore the cuts and dissolve the awareness of the edit; to

serve a seamless whole, a hyper logical fi lmic totality: more real than actual reality.”


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Montage in the Mise-En-Scène

Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock, 1954

III. MISE-EN-SCENE

One can easily compare “Mise-En-Scène” with theatre; the fi lmmaker attempts to

contain everything in one single frame and shot without any cuts.

“Rear Window is an architectural expression of a cinematic idea that challenges cinematic

troupes by presenting a rich montage within the mise en scene; segmenting the action of

diff erent players but presenting them all at once. Hitchcock creates new connections across

seemingly unconnected actions for both the viewer and the protagonist. By drastically

reducing the realm of experience and then articulating every moment of it, Hitchcock

creates a hermetic experiential space that contains disparate data but still seems coherent.”


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Amir Soltani

Soft Cinematic Framework22

“Montage is confl ict”

Sergei Eisenstein’s fi ve forms of montage

Metric - The rate of the cuts are given by a determined length of shots no matter what is

happening within the image.

Rhythmic - The cutting rate is based upon the rhythm of movement/action that occurs

within the shot.

Tonal - The emotional tone of the shot determines when a cut occurs.

Overtonal - The overtonal montage is the cumulation of metric, rhythmic, and tonal

montage.

Intellectual - An arrangement of shots which, combined, elicit an intellectual meaning.

This meaning does not exist within the individual shots; it only arises when they are

juxtaposed.

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SPACE | EVENT | MOVEMENT

“Architecture’s unique quality is that the means through which it materializes it’s concepts

are also the means through which it expresses itself visually and socially. (...)

Architecture’s is linked to events in the same way that the guard is linked to the prisoner, the

policeman to the criminal, the doctor to the patient, order to chaos. This also suggests that

actions qualify spaces as much as spaces qualify actions. (...)

Architecture and events constantly transgress each other’s rules, whether explicitly or

implicitly. These rules, these organized compositions, may be questioned, but they always

remain points of reference. A building is a point of reference for the activities set to negate

it. A theory of architecture is a theory of order threatened by the very use it permits. And

vice versa. (...)

Bodies Violating Space ; First, there is the violence that all individuals infl ict on spaces by

their very presence, by their intrusion into the controlled order of architecture. Entering a

building may be a delicate act, but it violates the balance of a precisely ordered geometry.

(Do architectural photographs ever include runners, fi ghters, lovers?)

Architecture, then, is only an organism passively engaged in constant intercourse with

users, whose bodies rush against the carefully established rules of architectural thought.

Few regimes would survive if architects were to program every single movement of

individual and society in a kind of ballet mécanique of architecture.”


Bernard Tschumi

Advertisements for Architecture25

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“The world of cinema was the fi rst to introduce discontinuity a segmented world in which

each fragment maintains its own independence, thereby permitting a multiplicity of

combinations.

At one point in ‘The Golem’, the street is fi lled with a cheering crowd; later on, it’s strewn

with dead bodies. It’s not quite the same street in the two versions.

The screenplay in the fi lm begins to seem like an architectural program, describing a set

of activities and their relationships. If the “site” of the fi lm is the street, then it’s space is

defi ned by what happens in it. You begin to realize that, as an architect, you will be writing

programmatic screenplays of sorts, as if anticipating potential events.

If you take a cathedral and project Hollywood movies in it, the building ceases to function

as a cathedral. So architecture does not exist without a program, and it’s presence changes

with the diff ering nature of the programs.

Space, Event, Movement; The relationship that gives meaning to architecture. Abstracted

from a user or a context, a building has no meaning.

There is no such thing as a neutral space. Architecture does not exist without something

that happens in it. Our perception of architecture depends on the activities that take place

inside it. The space is transformed by events.”


Paul Wegener

The Golem, 192027

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“The temporality of the Transcripts inevitably suggest the analogy of fi lm. Beyond a

common twentieth-century sensibility, both share a frame-by-frame technique, the

isolation of frozen bits of action. In both, spaces are not only composed, but also developed

from shot to shot so that the fi nal meaning of each shot depends on its context.

The relationship of one frame to the next is indispensable insofar as no analysis of any one

frame can accurately reveal how the space was handled altogether. The Transcripts are thus

not self-contained images. They establish a memory of the preceding frame, of the course

of events. Their fi nal meaning is cumulative; it does not depend merely on a single frame,

but on a succession of frames or spaces. (...)

We begin with a set of discrete frames (fi ve ‘real’ architectural confi gurations, fi ve ‘real’

movements, fi ve ‘real’ events) and combine them in a set of autonomous and linear

sequences (both transformational and programmatic), each with its own internal logic

and rational rules.

(the skater skates on the skating rink)

Only at the end are they all superimposed and then de-constructed into something

altogether diff erent.

(the quarterback tangoes on the skating rink)”

Bernard Tschumi / Manhattan Transcripts

Bernard Tschumi

The Manhattan Transcripts: MT4 color plate29

Bernard Tschumi

La Villette, Axon30

Themes from The Manhattan Transcripts

Defi nition

Limit

Condition

Disjunction

Classifi cation

Event

Space

Movement

Relation

Indiff erence

Reciprocity

Confl ict

Notation

Movement Notation

Event Notation

Articulation

Frames

Sequence

Transformation

Device

Combination

Program

Narrative

Deconstruction

Reality

Photography

Cinema

Sensation

Violence

Pleasure / MadnessBernard Tschumi

La Villette, Folie Diagram31

Kuleshov Eff ect, 1910-1920

“The insertion of any additional space within a spacial sequence can change the meaning

of the sequence as well as its impact on the experiencing subject (as in the noted Kuleshov

experiment, where the same shot of the actor’s impassive face is introduced into to a

variety of situations, and the audience reads diff erent expressions in each successive

juxtaposition).”

Bernard Tschumi / Manhattan Transcripts

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THE SITE

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Bel-Air

Lausanne, 1940

Sebeillon is a district of industrial character, located in the historically ancient railway

strip of Lausanne. It was chosen as a shooting location for the fi lm because of its

intriguing position; right at the THRESHOLD between the soon-to-be urbanised western

end of the Flon valley (Sevelin) and the Malley districts further west. At a large scale,

Sebeillon stands ”ïn-between” the cities of Renens and Lausanne.

There is a certain no-man’s land atmosphere to be felt on site, both visually and

programmatically; a consequence of the lack of urban planning and interventions in the

past decades. Some clear traces of the 1940’s heavy railway activities are still present,

such as tracks and docking platforms.

Aside from its “in-between” character, Sebeillon witnesses a large number of “events” as

Tschumi qualifi ed them: abandoned as well as main rail-tracks, a metal waste centre,

oversized parking surfaces, the Sarassin industrial hangar (protected architecture),

high density social housings, an isolated butchery among the tracks, a frequently

congestionned main road, a high level of prostitution along the main road and in the

social housings. In Sevelin, the neighboring, district industrial lofts and ateliers, creative

agencies, two professional schools of 650 students each, a theatre, a concert hall, an

isolated bar, an art exhibition centre, a skate-park.

During the next decade, Lausanne will be launching a large scale urban program on

the whole industrial strip. At the heart of the program stands a massive infrastructural

project that will reintroduce the tramway line in the heart of Lausanne as it once was in

the 1940’s. One of the lines will run along the industrial strip from Renens to Lausanne,

and could potentially trigger urban activity along the strip including Sebeillon.

“ARCHITECTURE | MONTAGE” seeks opportunities in the present and future conditions of

Sebeillon to investigate on the excerpted themes on confl icting events and montage.

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THE FILM

Dziga Vertov, Elizaveta Svilova,

Man with a Movie Camera45

Personal Gear

DSLR Camera, Tripod, Dolly Slider

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The fi lm is a practical application of the previous studied excerpts on montage. Using

close and wide angles, with still, hand-held, panning or tracking shots, one discovers

many events, conditions and atmospheres through the camera lens.

Further attention has been given to the rhythm of the fi lm. Some shots are arranged in

a group of equal lengths (metric montage), others shot lengths depend on their content

(rythmic montage), another shot reaches almost 5min in lengh and explores the Mise-

En-Scène technique.

Following the collision theories of Bernard Tschumi, an attempt was made to collide

shots of opposing nature in their visual and audio content:

The powerful machines crushing tones of metal | The long and painful shot of the worker

scraping slowly the dirt off his truck

The social housing and future constructions | The parking covered in debris of used

condoms

The noisy roads and car wash facilities | The hollow atmosphere and echoes of the old

hangar

The active city centre of Lausanne | The silent landscape of abandoned rail-tracks

The crowded skate-park | The crowded butchery

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REFERENCES

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BOOKS

ALEKAN, Henri, Des Lumières et des Ombres, Editions du Collectionneur, 1998

BERGFELDER, Tim, HARRIS, Sue, STREET, Sarah, Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination: Set Design in 1930s European Cinema, Amsterdam University Press, 2007

BLUM, Elisabeth, Atmosphäre: Hypothesen zum Prozess räumlicher Wahrnehmung, Lars Müller Publishers, 2010

FORTIN, David Terrance, Architecture and Science-fi ction Film, Ashgate Publishing Company, 2011

HALLAM, Julia, Cities in Film: Architecture, Urban Space and the Moving Image: An International Interdisciplinary Conference, Liverpool School of Architecture, 2008

JOUSSE, Thierry, PAQUOT, Thierry, La ville au cinéma, Cahiers du cinéma, 2005

KLONARIS Thomadaki, Technologies et Imaginaires, Dis Voir, 1996

KOECK, Richard, Cine-scapes: Cinematic Spaces in Architecture and Cities, Paperback, 2012

KOECK, Richard, The City and the Moving Image: Urban Projections, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

LAMSTER, Mark, Architecture and Film, Princeton Architectural Press, 2000

PENZ, François, THOMAS, Maureen, Cinema & Architecture : Melies, Mallet-Stevens, Multimedia, British Film Institute, 1997

PENZ, François, Urban Cinematics: Understanding Urban Phenomena Through the Moving Image, Intellect, 2012

RUSSETT, Robert, STARR, Cecile, Experimental Animation: An Illustrated Anthology, Van Nostrand Reinhold Inc., 1977

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SCHUMACHER, Michael, SCHAEFFER, Oliver, VOGT, Michael-Marcus, Move, Birkhäuser Architecture, 2010

SCHWARZER, Mitchell, Zoomscape: Architecture in Motion and Media, Princeton Architectural Press, 2004

SCHÖNING, Pascal, Cinematic Architecture, Architectural Association, 2009

SIMOND, Clotilde, PAVIOL, Sophie, Cinéma et architecture : La relève de l’art, Aléas, 2009

SYNNE, Bull, Urban Images: Unruly Desires in Film and Architecture, Sternberg Press, 2012

TAWA, Michael, Agencies of the Frame, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010

TSCHUMI, Bernard, Architectural Manifestoes, Architectural Association, 1979

TSCHUMI, Bernard, Architecture concepts: Red is Not a Color, Rizzoli, 2012

TSCHUMI, Bernard, Architecture In/of Motion, Distributed Art Pub Inc, 1997

TSCHUMI, Bernard, The Manhattan Transcripts, John Wiley & Sons, 1994

ZINSMEISTER, Annett, Gestalt der Bewegung, Jovis, 2012

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PDF ARTICLES

BUNDGAARD, Charlotte, Framing Fragmentation – The Architect as a Master of Montagein http://www.changingroles09.nl/uploads/File/Final.Bundgaard.pdf

ÇETİN, Hasan O., Fundamentals of Architactural Design in Comparison to Filmmakingin http://www.etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12607669/index.pdf

CHAN, ChiuShui, Motion & Architecturein http://www.public.iastate.edu/~cschan/534/Motion_in_Architecture.pdf

CHATZITSAKYRIS, Panagiotis, The Man With The Movie Camera : An Event-Driven Approach to Architectural Designin http://www. dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/33034

CHIN, Andrew, Bernard Tschumi - Six Concepts: Excerpt from Architecture and Disjunctionin http://www.famusoa.net/achin/courses/tschumi/6concepts.pdf

EISENSTEIN, Sergei M., Montage and Architecture (CA. 1938)in http://www.cosmopista.fi les.wordpress.com/2008/10/eisenstein_montage-and-architecture.pdf

GILLETTE, David, Sergei Eisenstein and the Montagein http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~dgillett/ENGL_411/pdf/DP_Chapter_2_selection_I.pdf

HARRIS, Yolande, Architecture and Motion: Ideas on Fluidity in Sound, Image and Spacein http://www.yolandeharris.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/ArchMotion.pdf

HARVEY, Aaron T., Cinémathèquetonics: Within the Apperceptive Montagein http://dl.dropbox.com/u/415948/Cinemathequetonics%20Script.pdf

HERRMANN, Erik W., Collisions in Architecture and Filmin http://www.trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2079&context=utk_chanhonoproj

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KYOUNG EUN KWONG, Filmic Architecture: On motion perspective in an Architectural Synthesisin http://www.dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/28326/55653651.pdf?sequence=1

MANOVICH, Lev, Macrocinemain http://www.manovich.net/macrocinema.doc

MASSERA, Carmen A., Architectural representation and experiencing space in fi lmin http://www.ort.edu.uy/farq/pdf/documentodeinvestigacion1.pdf

ONETO, Paulo D., A Critical Reading of Walter Benjamin´s The work of art in the age of mechanical reproductionin http://www.gewebe.com.br/pdf/critical.pdf

PETROVICI, Liliana, Art of Film – A Way of Architectural Communicationin http://www.ce.tuiasi.ro/~bipcons/Archive/167.pdf

ROUND, Tony, The Architecture of Blade Runner: Collage and Contradiction in a Vision of the Futurein http://www.architecture.uwaterloo.ca/faculty_projects/terri/pdf/blade_runner_rev.pdf

SHOPE, Joshua Loyd, Screening Architecture: Film Theory and Study as Design Methodin http://www.lulu.com/shop/joshua-shope/screening-architecture-fi lm-theory-and-study-as-design-method/ebook/product-17375773.html

SOLTANI, Amir, Mapping Architectural Appearances, Aff ects, and Amodalityin http://www.ksi.edu/seke/Proceedings/dms11/DMS/26_Amir_Soltani.pdf

SOLTANI, Amir, Panohaptic Interface for Architectural Filmic Improvisaionin http://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/ewic_ev09_s9paper3.pdf

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Cover

Dziga Vertov, Elizaveta Svilova, Man with a Movie Camera

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Hartwell Enoncé Livret