Feast your eyes on the world's most outstanding architectural photographs, videos, visualizations, drawing and models with the winners of Architizer's inaugural Vision Awards. Sign up to receive future program updates >
Architecture and movies have always gone together, from Hitchcock’s pioneering use and representation of space to Kubrick’s anxious use of interiors to Terry Gilliam’s absurdo-futurist panoply of forms in Brazil. These examples, great as they may be, are very well-known and always trotted out when any discussion of film and buildings is broached. But what about those lesser-spotted buildings from classic less-than-classic movies?
The last decade of Hollywood movies has offered plenty for architectural lovers to gawk at, even if the films themselves are usually underwhelming, to put it kindly (we’re looking at you, Twilight). Enjoy this list, and be sure to continue onto page two at the foot of the page for the second set of A-list architectural cameos!
Baumschulenweg Crematorium
Still from “Aeon Flux”
Baumschulenweg Crematorium by Axel Schultes and Charlotte Frank, Berlin, Germany
15 minutes of fame: Featured in Aeon Flux (2005)
The Cullen family
Hoke House by Skylab Architecture, Portland, Oregon
15 minutes of fame: Doubled as the Cullen family home in Twilight (2008)
Villa Överbyby John Robert Nilsson Arkitektkontor, Stockholm Archipelago, Sweden
15 minutes of fame: Martin Vanger’s house (and torture cellar) in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Photo: Roland Halbe
Daniel Craig/James Bond running atop the ESO Hotel in “Quantum of Solace”
ESO Hotel by Auer + Weber Architekten, Cerro Paranal, Chile
15 minutes of fame: Featured in Quantum of Solace (2008)
Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx in “The Soloist”
Disney Opera House by Frank Gehry, Los Angeles, Calif.
15 minutes of fame: Featured in The Soloist (2009)
The Skyline Residence by Belzberg Architects, Los Angeles, Calif.
15 minutes of fame: Doubled as Ryan Gosling’s absurd bachelor pad in Crazy Stupid Love (2011)
Stills from “The International”
Phaeno Science Center by Zaha Hadid,Wolfsburg, Germany
15 minutes of fame: Doubled as a secret lair in The International (2009). The building was photoshopped at the bottom of a ravine at the edge of the sea.
30 St. Mary Axe; photo: Oli Scarff
Hard times inside the Gherkin, from “Match Point”
30 St. Mary Axe (“The Gherkin”) by Foster + Partners,London, UK
15 minutes of fame: See in Woody Allen’s Match Point (2005). The interiors double as Jonathan Rhys-Meyers’ office
Tom Cruise scaling the side of the Burj
Burj Khalifa, by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Dubai, UAE
15 minutes of fame: Site of a nefarious nuclear missile exchange in Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol (2011)
The Standardby Ennead Architects, New York, New York.
15 minutes of fame: One of its rooms doubled as the, ahem, “boom-boom room” in Shame (2012)
Feast your eyes on the world's most outstanding architectural photographs, videos, visualizations, drawing and models with the winners of Architizer's inaugural Vision Awards. Sign up to receive future program updates >
