Imaginary architecture and cinema

Abstract

Any representation of a city is a reality produced through a given reality. Therefore, anything that makes us look away from objective reality into a more abstract one, like cinema, becomes a form of fiction; thus it sheds light on one of the basic conditions of humans: imagination. A cultural heritage, urban imagery has ranged from accurate to imaginary representations that show that cities exist and are interpreted in the collective mind and that they mutate through the individual approach. In futuristic speculations, these mutated cities were transformed into utopian cities capable of “solving everything”. In this way, the image of the city of the future came to be through the transformation of ideological conceptions into utopia. The 20th Century cinema paved part of this path, giving birth to the cinematographic city. Nowadays, the way we experience the city is plagued with images that were perceived, recalled, or imagined. Cinema has played a big role in the creation of this visual catalogue, for every film has a setting where the action takes place. A setting which is rarely randomly chosen and, most often than not, plays an active part in the film. These fictitious spaces have contributed to induce a better understanding of human reality, revealing its desire of evolution. Cinema is still a dreamlike experience that takes place in a dark room, where we watch our fantasies come true. These whirlpools of images also cross our minds while designing, and it is here where we confine spaces. Through these similar circumstances, man discovers future forms.