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Metropolis the city never sleeps

Tower of Babel - Erich Kettelhut

The great film magazine Cahiers du Cinema (English edition), in number 5 reminds us the thin but powerful architectural relationship between the close air of a spinner flying the big city in the film Blade Runner (we all have the key sequence on our retina) and the drawing of Erich Kettelhut that repro duces also an aerial view of a tower topped by a five-pointed star.

Fritz Lang Kettelhut used this picture of one of its artistic directors, for sequences of Metropolis in which the protagonist watches from the window of a skyscraper, the majestic city of the future. Between the two films are far fifty-five years, but time to recreate worlds that only eight years apart (the 2027 of Metropolis and 2019, from Blade Runner ). Interestingly the recent Renaissance (Christian Volckman , 2006) recreates one of his frames similar architecture. And not so recent (Dark city, 2001: A Space Odyssey , Star Wars, Matrix the Burton Batman, ...). Even the band Queen recreates the city of Lang in his video of the song Radio ga ga.


They say that Lang was inspired by his fascination with architecture caused New York to get there by 1936 to roll the film industry Hollywood Fury. This revelation, coupled with the potential taken from his appreciation of Expressionism and Art Deco, and of course an incredible talent for creating possible universes and beautiful, would do the rest. Hilbersheimer Le Corbusier would join smoothly to the industrial aesthetic. Lang mind that the original sketches of the city simulate glass skyscrapers like those designed by Mies van der Rohe for Friedrichstraße in Berlin, or the sketches of Hilberseimer Ludwig's proposal for redevelopment of Berlin. Lang is creative, but at the same time heir to an aesthetic tradition that binds her own architectural standards Futurist Manifesto signed in Milan on July 11, 1914. This show would plant the foundations of modern architecture: the use of durable materials (steel, concrete and glass), simplicity, technical precision, fusion of modern and classic, the primacy of a city imagined, futuristic ...

This fascination by Metropolis has attracted millions of viewers so far the revelation of a futuristic metropolis, inspiring many filmmakers to recreate their own urban worlds. Even UNESCO has included in its agenda Metropolis Memory of the World.


cinephile Our memory alone could perform numerous flashes of exquisite scenes where the city is a character or feel how your bell eza saw the plot of a magical light and texture. I remember Wings of ( Wenders , 1987), and - why not! - A giant monkey that hung from the Empire State Building.

an appetizer, here's a pill: the look of Michael Mann at night in Los Angeles in Collateral.

A delight for the eyes (and ears).

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Manifesto of Futurist architecture