Site&Sound is an event series that explores the relationship between architecture and film. Each session will feature curated clips and short films around a chosen theme, inviting discussion around particular elements of representation and the different techniques employed by filmmakers. Themes will examine a multitude of perspectives on architecture, ranging from varying building types to their individual component parts and how these are interpreted by the viewer as they see the world through the lens of the built environment.
This edition looks at how cinema engages with the full life cycle of architecture, moving from construction to demolition, encompassing collapse and ruin. In film, buildings are never simply static backdrops but instead they take an active role in shaping plots and creating spectacle. From Buster Keaton’s slapstick ballet of housebuilding in One Week (where buildings go up and fall down at a rapid pace) to high-stakes James Bond sequences played out across cranes and unfinished towers, architecture in transition creates instability, risk and cinematic tension. The viewer gets to experience the skeletons of the built world, where the structures behind the “set” take on a new meaning.
But cinema is equally drawn to what comes after. Scenes of demolition can be both the dramatic conclusion of a story or the start of a character’s journey, while ruins and abandoned spaces invite reflection. Crumbling walls, ravaged interiors and empty structures suggest worlds that have been disrupted or left behind, offering a distinct counterpoint to the possibility of construction. This event will invite the audience to experience architecture as process rather than product, capturing the strange thrill and beauty of spaces caught between what they were and what they might become.
