🎞️Exploring architectural styles from movies
I searched online for some movies and animations that could inspire me. I watched The Matrix, Blade Runner, and Cyberpunk Edgerunner several times, paying attention to their visual elements. I noticed the distinctive architectural style that reflects the cyberpunk ethos of high-tech and low-life. The buildings are towering, crowded, and decaying which makes them oppression and inequality.
In Blade Runner, The city is filled with neon signs, holograms, and advertisements representing a high level of consumerism and corporatism. The streets are also under constant surveillance by cameras, drones, and police forces. I was especially impressed by the futurism in design and neon lighting that gave the city a vibrant and colorful look, where similar to my hometown - Hong Kong. I also learned about the Brutalist design style that was used in Blade Runner to create a contrast between the old and the new.
The New: Futurism is reflected in high-tech elements, futuristic design, and neon lights.
The Old: The Brutalist design style is exposed to concrete structures, heavy blockiness, and symmetry, which is also reflected in some buildings to show a primitive and strong visual impact.
In "The Matrix", the architectural style predominantly features industrial elements, such as exposed pipes, metal structures, and concrete walls, creating a primitive yet futuristic atmosphere. The film's color palette, dominated by dark and green tones, contributes to a sense of oppression and mystery, reflecting the theme of human subjugation by machines. The buildings in the film are generally simplistic and functional, devoid of excessive decoration. The incorporation of advanced technology and surveillance equipment in and around the buildings exemplifies the cyberpunk exploration of high technology and societal monitoring.
The architectural style of Night City in the animation Cyberpunk: Edgerunner is like
Night City’s architectural style is influenced by both the real world and science fiction works. In the role-playing game, Night City mainly draws on the design and inspiration of downtown San Francisco in the real world. In all versions, the city is always located somewhere on the central coast of California. In terms of style and theme, Night City - and the entire cyberpunk series - is influenced by Blade Runner, and Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the original role-playing game, also mentioned that Bubblegum Crisis, an anime, influenced him when creating the game. The version depicted in Edgerunner is divided into four styles: Kitsch, Entropism, Neo-military and Neo-kitsch. (Tommasino, 2020)
Kitsch style describes a slightly more affluent social class. The members of this social class use some cyberware to look very beautiful and attract attention. The architecture here is also very attractive, with a lot of bright colors, and a lot of shiny materials, such as plastic or good fabrics.
Entropism style is based on poverty and severe resource scarcity. In short, this style visually tells the story of a very poor social class in our world. Its core slogan is “necessity over style”. Entropism style design is based on everyday items that you can even see today, but we have some “cyberpunk twists” here, for example, maybe a mirror has a holographic user interface that shows the date and outside temperature, or maybe a table has a few buttons to control its height.
Neo-military style is a style based on military and security. The buildings and items in this style are very sturdy, durable, functional, usually black or gray. This style reflects the control and influence of mega-corporations and government agencies over Night City.
Neo-kitsch style is a style based on extreme luxury and personalization. The buildings and items in this style are very exquisite, expensive, unique, usually gold or white. This style reflects the most wealthy and powerful elite class in Night City.
Night City’s architecture is also influenced by Brutalist architecture, which is a style that uses bricks and concrete that emerged in the 1950s. Kacper Niepokólczycki, environmental design director of Cyberpunk 2077, said that Brutalist architecture played an important role in creating Night City. Brutalist architecture was also used in Blade Runner to create a contrast between the old and the new, the organic and the synthetic, the human and the machine.
Tommasino, M. (2020) ‘Night City: How the Cyberpunk 2077’s Megalopolis Was Built’, Domus. Available at: https://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/gallery/2020/12/21/night-city-how-the-cyberpunk-2077s-megalopolis-was-built.html (Accessed: 20 September 2023).
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Image 1 & 2 credit: Warner Bros.
