Time is constantly flowing. Architecture is something still. However, architecture is a good tool for showing how time flows in movies. That is because that architecture is not totally still and can create an atmosphere that a film needs. In the film Empire, Warhol shot a building for eight hours which shows the actual rhythm of a site. That movie shows how “reel time” is different from “real time” and how they connect with each other. Scroll time is displayed in space and includes reconstruction. In Tsai Ing-Wen’s film What Time Is It, the time has been disrupted and reorganized. Architecture in Taiwan and Paris contrast each other with time gradually becoming consistent. That demonstrates the mother and son’s inner time concept which is broken away because of father’s death. Through the cutting of shots a special time zone is created in the cinema. Actually the film has a job of adjusting or finding the audience’s own inner clock. I remember Roland Barthes’s description of a people’s sleepy state after seeing a movie in Leaving the movie theater. Real time can be an extension of reel time. That’s why films have great influence on people.
Jumping a little bit out of the article, I got an inspiration that architecture has its own ability to alter real time into “reel time”, which means our feeling or concept of time can be changed by architecture. People understand time sequence partly from spacial sequence. In the beginner’s architecture book, the rhythm and pace is always a pair of concepts being discussed. “Pace” is what reel time includes while “rhythm” can be developed by spacial sequence. Chinese traditional garden has a traditional design technique called “trading the scenery with moving step”, which gives people a scene just like full-length shot applied in film. In the same principle, “reel time” is created. That’s why we can feel our time flowing speed changed in Chinese garden. It may be amazing to apply film mindset to the design process. How can architecture deal with “reel time” and further influence people’s mental health? This can be thought while designing a new building or new city.
— Liu Yichu Chelsea, 3035773072
You have assimilated Bruno’s piece well. I particularly enjoyed how you relate film to architecture with the notion of ‘time’. It is true that architecture exists in time, as exhibited in Warhol’s film Empire (1965). You have elaborated extensively on how Chinese gardens are designed/ used with ‘reel’ time. Most, if not all architectures are not just for visual impact but tactile, daily use. Apart from the Chinese garden, which is closely related to journey and time, how would you apply your idea of ‘reel’ time to analyse other architectures?