I would like the viewer to understand the architecture of a city beyond the architectural object
and to show subjective interpretations. My goal is to give a voice to the people and the
architecture. I am interested in alternative narratives about architecture and cities from nonarchitects and non-tourist related parties. Film is purposefully chosen to combat against the
tourist medium of photography. Arguably, film offers a clearer representation of architecture
with sound, time, and movement. To go beyond voyeurism, and to really grasp the experience
of a building- finding its flaws and eccentricities, yielding undiscovered beauty- will produce a
more authentic portrait of all of these issues.
The architectural historian and theorist can become storytellers who embed life, place, time,
and experience in an architectural narrative. In “The Narration of Architecture,” an editor of
Casabella, Pierre-Alan Croset focuses on how meaningful architecture can be published and
retain meaning through narration. To recover these local, cultural experiences, a narrative must
emerge to salvage ‘real’ architecture from consumption. Although not given as a solution,
Croset references film as an example of the sequencing of images. Interestingly enough, the
theorist Juhani Palasmaa finds that the narration of memories and the totality of senses in
literature and film are positive alternatives that fall within the realm of the ocular but include
so much more than just a quickly consumable product. Film offers the viewer an understanding
of subjective spatiality, the feeling of time and movement, the way that gravity and light touch
materials, and the events within a space and its surroundings. Film also offers various modes
of representation that are often homogenized in photography.
A critical approach in viewing architecture is necessary to protect architecture from becoming
a consumable, and thereby replaceable object. Out of all the art forms, architecture is most
aptly realized in real experience. An architecture that relates in a sensual, humanistic way
envelopes people in a certain time, space and condition. Likewise, intimate and personal
experience with architecture is important to show to protect people from losing their sense of
place in the world.