Walls Have Feelings: Architecture, Film and the City

by Katherine Shonfield

For the first time, this book brings the insights, methodologies and visions of film to the practice of architecture.
Walls Have Feelings poses unanswered questions from our immediate past, crucial for the future of the city: what was the cultural mindset leading to the triumph of Brutalism? What is the urban and domestic impact of large scale office building? Are there alternatives to the planners' city of object? and, Why does your flat leak?
This book uniquely brings to bear questions of urgent cultural relevance on critical design decisions. As such, it is of as much importance to architects, planners and students of design, as to students of cultural history, geography and all enthusiasts of cities and of film.

Genres: Architecture, Film, Theory

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 23, 2000

Reviews

[lottie❀]

reaallyy enjoyed super interesting even though didn’t always follow as i hadn’t seen the films would like to read more about postwar architecture/social stuff.

[Tito Quiling, Jr.]

I appreciate how this book used an overview of the chapters, complete with visual references, and a summary in the end, which bookends the work on Hollywood cinema and architecture quite cleanly. This could have been a bit longer with tracing how the city, interior spaces, environmental connections, and locations eases into the personal domain, apart from gendered readings. Nevertheless, this is a strong work on urban films and architectural studies.

[Paula]

Very exciting theoretical work. Shonfield reads architecture, film, and cities alongside one another to reveal the interrelation of space, building materials, and fiction. Opens up provocative lines of questioning for studying postwar culture.

[Mon]

I love how Shonfield selected quite a few 'feminist' films in relation to architecture considering how overlooked the concept of gendered space is. Other than that, meh.