Abstract
Along with other archival material such as drawings, sketch books and written correspondence, images such as official publicity shots, construction photographs, newspaper reports, magazine features, demolition captures and even tourist snapshots have all been employed as documentary evidence to understand the development and transformation of the built environment over time, thereby allowing architectural historians to tell their stories. Even though moving images - film and cinema - can be equally documentative, they have been much less utilized for this purpose than their static, still-image counterparts. This essay argues that moving images from fiction and documentary films can inform architectural and urban historians about the built history of a particular place just as easily - if not better - than still images. Using a series of case studies from various film genres, this essay aims to highlight cinema as a viable and vital resource for writing architectural history.
Author Information
Christopher S. Wilson, Ringling College of Art and Design, United States
Gül Kaçmaz Erk, Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom
Paper Information
Conference: IICAH2025
Stream: History/Historiography
This paper is part of the IICAH2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Wilson C., & Erk G. (2025) Re-framing the Past: Using Film and Cinema to Write Architectural History ISSN: 2432-4604 – The IAFOR International Conference on Arts & Humanities – Hawaii 2025 Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 65-73) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2432-4604.2025.6
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2432-4604.2025.6
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