This article comes courtesy of our friend and cenephile Charlotte Neilson, the author of the fascinating design blog Casting Architecture, which discusses architecture and production design.
The life of a building - a few hundred years, if a building is lucky - is just a blip when compared to the billions of years required to shape the natural landscape. Even briefer is the work of a film maker: a pursuit created for momentary entertainment, which reaches completion in just a couple of hours. Strange then, that film has often stepped in to preserve buildings who have met an early demise.
While Architecture and Film have always had an uncomfortable relationship (be it the movie industry’s portrayal of modern buildings as cold and soulless - and usually associated with less than savory occupants or the stereotyping of Architects themselves as delicate, impractical types), the inclusion of a building in a feature film can often become an important part of a building’s story. And sometimes its last bastion.
