"Bigness" In Ridley Scott's LA
First off, I wanted to state that this was my first time
watching Blade Runner, which I am sure puts me in the minority, but
nevertheless I found the movie immediately fascinating. Not just story-wise either, what intrigued me
more was the world that they created in the “future” Los Angeles. The buildings were large and futuristic,
imposing themselves over the inhabitants of the city. Constant rain and a dark feeling gave the
city an ominous feeling. Everything from
the cars, to the outfits to the buildings were featured futuristic elements and
motifs, never before seen. To me the
city seemed to be just as much of a character in the movie as Deckard and Roy. A part of me was always wondering how they
made the sets for the movie, whether they made a bunch of cool scaled models or
they used a very premature version of CGI, either way the buildings that made
up this version of Los Angeles in 2019 were fascinating.
The main pyramid-shaped building that makes several
appearances throughout the movie, draws numerous connections to Rem Koolhaas’s
five theorems of “bigness” in architecture.
It wasn’t completely controlled by one architectural function, the
programs of the building at some point became autonomous depending on what the
patrons needed/wanted. The elevator, or
in this case, the several elevators were the main circulation on the outside of
the building. You can’t really tell what
goes on inside the building just by looking at the façade. Because it is such a large building, it has
an impact on the city surrounding it, for better or worse and finally, it doesn’t
take into account its surround context at all.
I analyzed this particular building using these lenses because
it played a prominent role in the movie and the world that Ridley Scott was
creating. But I am sure that several
other buildings in this dystopian LA would align with these same theorems. It is interesting to see these parallels that
Koolhaas is drawing between big architecture, even in theoretical
versions. I am not sure if he meant them
to be degrading of large buildings, but I personally have never liked big
architecture in the real world, but in these fantasy ones, it is interesting to
analyze.
I'm with you, Aaron: I was late to the Blade Runner party, too. One of my friends and former roommates was a bit of a film buff, and it drove him crazy that I'd never seen it. I used to go around the apartment improvising my own versions of the "Tears in the Rain" monologue (having only overheard part of it once from the other room) just to mess with him. I finally saw it a few years later and thought it was great, but it wasn't until architecture school and, more specifically, until Andreea and Ufuk dropped some knowledge on me about Antonio Sant'Elia that i really appreciated it.
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy watching "futuristic" movies in the "present", the movie taking place in 2019 seems to be more like 3019 to me. This lends itself to the human imagination and truly the optimism of the human race that we believe ourselves to invent this world. This reminds me of the connection the "The Culture of Congestion" and the explanation of a metropolitan architecture. The invention of the elevator created a seemingly "futuristic" society to what a previous city looked like. I really enjoyed your Koolhaas x Bladerunner crossover :)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that we got the chance to watch this movie for class and with a critical lens of architecture. Like you were saying, it made me really pay attention not to the main characters but what is happening in the world around them. The movie really builds this world and drops you right in the middle of it. Let's hope that this scale of bigness never becomes reality and stays in sci-fi films. That way we can point and say "glad we didn't do that"
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