Cinematic placemaking: the phenomenological contributions of A Single Man directed by Tom Ford

Abstract

In this paper it is argued that the discourse of architecture stands to gain a great deal from the disciplines of fashion, photography, and film. The film, A Single Man, directed by Tom Ford - fashion designer, interior architecture graduate - will be used as a case study. Fashion in architecture is certainly a controversial term, especially with the rise of the so-called Starchitect and the Bilbao Effect on the one hand, and a shift toward transformative, socially just, and climate sensitive architecture on the other. Similarly, the role of photography and film in architecture has in recent decades been brought to question, as such critiques ascribe the “spectators gaze” of architectural environments and the ocularcentric nature of our discipline to these media. This paper subverts these critiques by illustrating how fashion and photography can, in fact, give atmospheric and experiential insights into scenarios and places, providing valuable insights for architectural place-making. A Single Man is a narrative, set over the course of one day, and focusses on loss and suffering. The phenomenology of loss and suffering is concretised in this film through various phenomena, such as time, light, colour, objects in space, articles of clothing and the architecture of the home, embodied by John Lautner’s 1949, Schaffer House in Glendale. The film provides us with a “perspectival perception” (Merleau-Ponty) of these phenomena, through the body and the mind of the protagonist, in both the present, and the past, through memory. These are all aspects that contribute to create a multisensory, embodied, and oneiric sense of place. In reference to the existential meta-narrative of the film, the paper concludes by fundamentally challenging the transient and static notions of fashion and photography, respectively, that exist in architectural discourse, and argues for an episteme that prioritises the experiential nature of architectural place-making.