Masters Theses

Matthew Munn

Date of Award

8-2003

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Architecture

Major

Architecture

Major Professor

George Dodds

Abstract

Film and architecture share many similarities, both in their conception and realization as well as in the way in which their audience experiences them, especially regarding their use of space and the movement through space. In his book, The Language of Film, Rod Whitaker states, "Film composition has its foundations in the same principles as has composition in painting and still photography (satisfying balance, direction of the eye, and accent), and it uses similar devices for gaining these goals (lines, mass, and intensity), but the film operates in time as well as space, and has the additional element of motion"(35). It is the filmmaker's skillful manipulation of these elements that makes film the dynamic medium that it is. The same can be said of architecture. As a result of this reliance on spatial manipulation film and architecture have the ability to begin a discourse on the nature of space and its ability to create emotion. Additionally, because both film and architecture use movement through time we can study the ways in which film dynamically engages its audience through its movement in space. An investigation of filmic space as well as the filmic process, then, could offer a possibility for the creation of architectural space. This thesis seeks to investigate the ways in which architecture has informed film in its creation of space as well as the ways in which we might look back to examine how the spatial understandings and manipulations of film can inform architecture.

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