Although both the stories and architectural settings of the Bond films may appear to be fantasies of little serious intent, they were, however, replete with references to their contemporary political and architectural environments; the cold war, the space race and the Cuban missile crisis formed the “real-life” political backdrop to the film, whilst the work of Buckminster Fuller in the United States and Archigram in the United Kingdom represented the architectural context in which the film’s sets would be considered. By the year in which You Only Live Twice was released, Fuller had been promoting “geodesic domes” and “tensegrity”, his version of a technologically advanced architecture, for over two decades, whilst, for their part, Archigram’s technological architectural visions and comic book aesthetic had achieved world recognition and was openly promoted by Reyner Banham, the doyen of contemporary architectural theory. Presenting the world with an architecture that bordered on science fiction, the legacy of Archigram5 is well documented and evident in the work of some of today’s most internationally renowned architects, such as Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano, Norman Foster and, perhaps most obviously, the architectural and design practice Future Systems.6
The subsequent work of these architects reveals that beneath the hype of the technological paraphernalia of capsules, tubes, cables and telescopic legs, the work of Archigram had serious intent. Nevertheless, it was certainly their hyperbole and ability to shock through spectacular architectural visions that was of interest to Adam in the context of the Bond films. Also of interest, however, was their idea of “technology transfer”.7 The major sets of You Only Live Twice were not only conceived as “spectacular futuristic visions”, they were also examples of how the most vanguard and futuristic technology could be employed in the architectural realm. The centre piece of Adam’s designs on this film was the space station built into a dormant volcano. Involving the construction of a set that was not only enormous in size but which mimicked all sorts of technological wizardry, it could be read as something straight from an Archigram magazine cover (Fig. 1).
Despite the sheer size and the extravagance of the spectacle this set represented, it is the less obvious characteristic of Adam’s “architecture of technology transfer” that we will focus on here, and the aesthetic duality between interior and exterior appearance it often induces. The space station is hidden inside a dormant volcano and, as a result, naturally plays on the fact that from the outside it is completely concealed. Although in this case an inevitable consequence of “camouflage”, the marked aesthetic difference between interior and exterior here emerges in numerous other sets on the film, for example the personal train of Tiger Tanaka, “M”s counterpart in Japan; the submarine seen at the beginning of the film; and the OSATA multi-storey building seen later. When seen from the outside, Tiger Tanaka’s personal train is apparently normal. However, on the inside, it is a technologically advanced office full of the most up-to-date gadgetry imaginable. In addition, it has all the luxury normally associated with a five star hotel. It has its own bar, lounge, computers and cinema screen. The submarine, seen in the first moments of the film, initially appears to be a normal military craft, but, once we are taken inside, is again shown to be secret service operations vehicle decorated with all the style of a cruise liner and, again, equipped with the technology we associate with Bond. The aesthetic distinction made in the case of the skyscraper used by OSATA (a company that acts as a front for SPECTRE) is less extreme; a concrete modernist block from the outside, it is decorated in a traditional Japanese style on the interior.
There are of course a number of contemporary and everyday examples of this type of dual aesthetic in the world of architecture or vehicle design. The case of the luxurious interior to Bond’s submarine has a well-rooted tradition in the history of shipbuilding, with cruise liners always having been great feats of engineering on the one hand, and decadent displays of wealth and finery on the other. The case of the modern office building with an “antique” interior theme is typical in the context of shop, restaurant or even office fit-outs, in which the interior design can easily take on a historic theme. We do not even have to go very far to find contemporary examples analogous to the personal train of Tanaka either. Indeed, in the build up to the second Gulf War in 2002, numerous images of the interior of the C-17 transport plane used by the American Secretary of State, Donald Rumsfeld, were seen throughout the pages of the world’s media. An industrial/military transport plane from the outside, it is a technologically advanced functional office on its interior (Fig. 2). Thus, in spite of the strangeness that Adam’s double aesthetic may provoke in You Only Live Twice, it is clearly a fiction based on reality.
Although far from being unusual, the surprise this double aesthetic can provoke is exaggerated in You Only Live Twice by the use of the cinematic cut to make the exterior-interior narrative transition. The inevitable (aesthetic jump) between the two places is emphasised and underlined by the fact that the change is instantaneous and unannounced. Although the cut is an editorial-directorial decision, it also influences the design thinking of the set designer as Adam himself has identified. With respect to the space station in the volcano for example, Adam has commented that it was designed knowing that it would only be filmed from the inside8 and that, consequently, it was unnecessary to design a structure that would have any exterior aesthetic impact. By extension, it was also unnecessary to consider the design of the threshold zone or area. Similarly, in the offices of OSATA, or the submarine of the Secret Services, the difference between the interior and exterior aesthetic is introduced suddenly and without warning through the cut, with its concomitant elimination of the threshold space and shot.
With respect to the space station in the dormant volcano, there is one other factor to consider however, and that is scale. When we finally see Bond approaching the volcano from the outside, there is no indication that below is an open space of such magnitude. Consequently, when the cut takes us inside, the spatial transition it introduces is characterised by both a radical change of aesthetic and a radical change of scale. You Only Live Twice, uses the cut in direct conjunction with the design of the set to create dramatic moments of surprise that are key to the entertainment value of the film. Nowhere is this more evident than in the chase scenes that characterise all the Bond films of that period and, indeed, today. One typical example in You Only Live Twice is the scene that leads Bond from the offices of OSAKA to the office of his ally Tanaka (Figs. 3–7).
Figure 1: The interior of the volcano.
Figure 2: C-17 transport plane used by Donald Rumsfeld.
Beginning with two guards pursuing Bond, who has broken into the building in order to steal “top-secret” documents kept in a safe on one of the upper floors, the scene quickly adopts the cinematographic traits of “the chase”. It passes between sequentially linked spaces; from one of the office spaces to the hall, then to a lift and subsequently to the car park on the ground floor. Once in the car park, Bond jumps in the car of Kissy, the classic Bond girl, and the two escape. The use of the cut allows the scene to pass through four different spaces following the sequence of the action as it transpires with only four shots. It is a simple technique that is repeated in the subsequent sequence when, upon arriving at a new location at a safe distance from the original pursuers, Kissy jumps out the car and runs away. Bond thus finds himself once again in a chase scene, but this time as hunter rather than hunted. From the car park they enter an industrial building, and in one of its corridors the secret agent falls through a trap door. Shown up until this moment through a series of cuts, the filming of the scene momentarily passes to a long take that follows Bond as he slides down a toboggan-like chute. The chase sequence only comes to an end when, through the use of another cut, we see Bond pass through another trap door and land on a padded seat in the luxurious office of Tiger Tanaka.
Figures 3–7: The chase scene cutting sequence.
Although clearly exaggerated and humoristic in this case, this s
equential spatial and temporal treatment of movement is typical of the film medium.9 It is also key to one aspect of the architecture of Jean Nouvel; a designer that has referenced film in numerous ways. Of particular interest here, are his comments with regard to the temporal and sequential nature of film and how it offers architects a precedent for their own understanding of the “architectural experience”. For Nouvel, the filmmaker is an artist whose medium necessitates the application of temporal as well as spatial concepts; the events of films take place in, and move through, multiple spaces, one after another. Whereas both painting and photography offer static views of the world film is seen as inherently lineal and sequential. Consequently, suggests Nouvel, the filmmaker can teach the architect to “think temporally”, to imagine the experience of the building user as an experience in sequence, an experience not only of space but also of time.10
In various projects, Nouvel has applied the notion of sequencing through the cut to his planning of architectural spaces.11 Consequently, it is not uncommon that Nouvel explains projects as a series of spaces that open out, one into the other, in a sequence of specific moments; the points at which we pass from one of these spaces to another becoming the architectural equivalent of a cut that jumps from one location, space or room, to the next. Seen in this light, doors are not only physical and metaphorical thresholds for architects to manipulate but also moments full of cinematic potential. When a series of spaces are thought of as a sequence, this cinematic potential becomes directly analogous to the type of scene just described; a series of shots that take the viewer across a number of locations as the narrative of the moving building user develops across space and time. Architecture, argues Nouvel, becomes analogous to cinema.12
However, Nouvel’s analogy between the architectural threshold and the cinematic cut does stop there. When one considers that the cut is not only capable of moving the viewer through spaces in sequence, but that it is also capable of moving the eye closer or further from a given object, the potential of this transitional device to make us consider scale emerges. Cutting from a long shot to a close-up does not just involve a change of position, it apparently moves things closer, meaning that a protagonist initially seen as dwarfed by a building behind, for example, can suddenly be shown filling the screen. Picking up on this characteristic, Nouvel often places spaces of radically different scales next to one another so that the spatial effect created by crossing the architectural threshold involves a radical change in our perception of the scale of the spaces we enter and leave respectively.13
Explained by Brigette Métra, the chief architect on Nouvel’s Culture and Congres Centre, Lucerne, 1998, it is an effect that forms part of Nouvel’s overall intention of “designing like a filmmaker”. At Lucerne, the specific effect of the cut is most notably employed at the entrance to the building’s main music hall, where, after walking along an extended corridor (analogous itself to a long take), the visitor enters a dark, narrow and low chamber before crossing the threshold into the bright, opulent and huge music hall, which ends what she calls the “cinematic sequence” with a cut.14 The analogy here, with what we have described in You Only Live Twice, is obvious. Just as Lewis Gilbert and Ken Adam play with the cut as a spatial device of transition and sequence and, in addition, use it as a manipulator of our expectation of scale, so too does Jean Nouvel.15 In this case, the analogy can even be applied aesthetically; the nature of the threshold corridor space concealing the opulence that awaits inside.
Referencing film in this way, Nouvel creates an architecture that can, at times, become a surrogate for the optical effects created on screen. In this sense he is picking up a thread of the architecture-cinema debate that has deep roots.16 In a Nouvel building however, it can become akin to watching a sequence of unpredictable cuts; close-up, to long shot and back again. These semi-architectural, semi-cinematic effects result from an interest in directing the mind of architects to the spatial and temporal lessons offered by film or, more specifically, cinematography. In this sense, Novel’s interest in film reflects the idea that underlies all the essays in this series. It is a concern with film as a formal and visual medium that offers connections with architecture that go beyond mere questions of set design.
Commenting on these ideas through the medium of a film like You Only Live Twice allows us to underline that these two concepts are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, they cannot be divorced. Just as Ken Adam can be considered a designer of spaces, architectural objects and interior atmospheres, he is also a designer that considers these phenomena through the prism of the camera, the screen and, by extension, the temporal sequence. This is the dual concern for set design and its cinematographic perception that lies at the very heart of Nouvel’s interest in film; a medium that can deepen the architect’s understanding of movement and the temporal nature of experience, but which does so in conjunction with the architect’s unavoidable focus on spaces, aesthetics and constructed form.
Notes
1For a comprehensive overview of the Bond franchise, see: Cork, John and Stutz, Colin. The Bond Encyclopedia, DK Publishing, New York, 2009.
2Ken Adam has been more circumspect regarding the futuristic aesthetic of the Bond series and describes this as “slightly tongue in cheek, slightly ahead of contemporary (architectural) concept”. See: “Dr. No”. In: D. Sylvester (ed), Moonraker, Strangelove and Other Celluloid Dreams: The Visionary Art of Ken Adam, Serpentine Gallery, London, 1999.
3Sylvester, David. “Ken Adam: Production Designer”. In: D. Sylvester (ed), Moonraker, Strangelove and Other Celluloid Dreams: The Visionary Art of Ken Adam, Serpentine Gallery, London, 1999. p. 14
4Set design has traditionally been the context of architecture’s relationship with film. In this regard, the work of Adam is one of the most celebrated examples. Other major films of interest in this regard include Metropolis (1927); The Fountainhead (1949); Playtime (1968); and Blade Runner (1982). For information on these projects and the “architectural” set designs involved, see: Neuman, Dietrich (ed). Film Architecture: Set Designs from Metropolis to Blade Runner, Prestel, London, 1996.
5A comprehensive overview of Archigram is given by Peter Cook. See: Cook, Peter. Archigram, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1999.
6The period in which the most literal influence of Archigram could be seen in architecture was in the 1980s when the term “Hi-Tech” was applied to the work of these architects to describe their conceptual, technological and aesthetic similarities. For an overview, see: Davies, Colin. High Tech Architecture. Rizzoli, London, 1988. For a more theoretical and critical examination of the technological attributes of the architecture of this period, see: Pawley, Martin. Theory and Design in the Second Machine Age, Wiley-Blackwell, London, 1990.
7In architecture, “Technology Transfer” refers to the adaptation and implementation of technologies used or developed in other fields such as the motor, aviation or IT sectors, etc. It became part of both the jargon and the reality of “futuristic” and “Hi-Tec architecture” throughout the 1970s and 1980s. For a more practical guide to the ideas stemming directly from this period, see: Ming, Sun. Technology Transfer, Architectural Design and Integrated Building Design Systems, University of Newcastle Press, Newcastle, 1993.
8Adam, Ken. “You Only Live Twice”. In: D. Sylvester (ed), Moonraker, Strangelove and Other Celluloid Dreams: The Visionary Art of Ken Adam, Ibid. p. 80
9The classic introductory/reference text on film editing was originally published in 1953 and updated in 1968. See: Reisz, Karel and Millar, Gavin. The Technique of Film Editing, (2nd edition), Focal Press, Waltham, 1989.
10Nicolin, Pierluigi (ed). Jean Nouvel Film Director and Architect, Lotus 84, Milan, 1995. p. 129
11The work of Nouvel has been extensively documented by Oliver Boissière. See: Boissière, Oliver. Jean Nouvel Studio, Patmos Verlag GmbH & Co KG, Ostfildern, 1992; and Jean Nouvel, Terrail, Paris, 1997. Also see: Márquez Cecilia, Fernando and Levene, Richard (eds), El Croqu
is, 1987–1998, Jean Nouvel, El Croquis Editorial, Madrid, 1998; Díaz Morneo, Cristina and García Grinda, Efrén (eds), El Croquis, 1994–2002, Jean Nouvel, El Croquis Editorial, Madrid, 2002.
12Nouvel, Jean. “Incorporating: Interview with Alejandro Zaera”. In: El Croquis, 1987–1998, Jean Nouvel, El Croquis Editorial, Madrid, 1998. p. 39
13Zaera, Alejandro. “Incorporating: Interview with Jean Nouvel”. Ibid. p. 38
14 Métra, Brigette. In: B. Kuert (directed), Jean Nouvel, Micromedia International, Grenoble. 2008.
15Nouvel’s approach has been described as explicitly that of the film-maker. See: Hatton, Brian. “Notes on Location: Nouvel, Virilio, Wenders”. In: O. Boissière (ed), Nouvel: Nouvel, Emmanuel Cattani et Associés, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 1992.
16The analogy between walking through a building and watching a cinematic sequence was made by Sergei Eisenstein in Montage and Architecture (1938), and subsequently analysed in an explicitly architectural context by Guiliana Bruno. See: Bruno, Giulina. “Site-seeing: Architecture and the Moving Image”. Wide Angle. Vol. 19, No. 4, 1997. p. 8–24 (Ohio University School of Film)
The Architecture of the Screen Page 5
