Architecture for the Screen: A Critical Study of Set Design in Hollywood’s Golden Age

Most of us have never found ourselves trapped inside a burning skyscraper or entombed within an Egyptian pyramid--but we probably have some idea of what it would be like because of their portrayal on screen. The movies have overcome the constraints of time and place by bringing us images of diverse and otherwise unfamiliar settings.

This work covers the many applications of art and architecture appearing in the movies produced in Hollywood from the very beginning until the fifties. The first chapters deal with the process of design, construction, physical characteristics and immediate functions of a wide variety of architectural sets. The remaining chapters examine the great number of styles shown in those movies and take the reader up to the final triumph of modernist architecture in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Juan Antonio Ramírez, professor of art history at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain, is the author of several books on architectural history, modern art, and visual culture. The late John F. Moffitt authored, edited or translated numerous books about art history. He was an art history professor at New Mexico State University.