Cinematic Starchitecture: The Celebrity Status of Urban Architectural Structures in Film

Cinematic Starchitecture explores how examples of famous architecture have circulated throughout cinema history across diverse genres.

Building on the term ’starchitecture’ - coined in 1997 for dramatic, monumental structures designed to gain international attention and economic advantage - the authors demonstrate that a crucial part of an architectural structure’s iconic star status emerges through its engagement with (and codification by) the media, and with cinema in particular. The book explores how iconic architectural structures have performed a myriad of roles and functions that exceed buildings’ everyday uses or identities as aesthetic objects, location markers, or spatial settings, to show that countless films globally have featured famous buildings as inimitable components of narrative exposition, character development, and/or identity construction.

This unique volume will appeal to students, scholars and researchers of Film Studies, Media Studies, and Architecture and Architectural History, as well as those in the areas of Media and Cultural Studies; History; Popular Culture; and Urban Geography.

Merrill Schleier is Professor Emeritus of Art and Architectural History and Cinema Studies at the University of the Pacific, USA, specializing in the relationship of urbanism, identity, and cinema.

Paul Newland is Professor at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. He has published widely on representations of cities, landscapes and architecture in literature and film.