The Cullen Family Home, from Twilight

Oscar season is upon us, and to celebrate, we’ve rounded up the top 10 contemporary buildings in movies. We specify “contemporary” because architecture and movies have always gone together, from Hitchcock’s pioneering use and representation of space to Kubrick’s anxious use of interiors to Terry Gilliam’s absurdo-futurist panoply of forms in Brazil. These examples, though great they may be, are very well-known and always trotted out when any discussion of film and buildings is broached. But what about newer, less canonical buildings from less-than-classic movies? The last decade of Hollywood movies have offered plenty for architectural lovers to gawk out, even if the films themselves are usually underwhelming, to put it kindly. (We’re looking at you, Twilight.) So grab the popcorn, and enjoy the (slide)show!

1)

Baumschulenweg Crematorium
Berlin
Designed by Alex Schultes and Charlotte Frank
15 minutes of fame: Featured in Aeon Flux (2005)

Still from “Aeon Flux”

2)

Hoke House
Portland, Oregon
Designed by Skylab Architecture
15 minutes of fame: Doubled as the Cullen family home in Twilight (2008)

The Cullen family 

3) 

Villa Överby
Stockholm Archipelago
Designed by John Robert Nilsson Arkitektkontor
15 minutes of fame: Martin Vanger’s house (and torture cellar) in David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011) 

4) 

Photo: Roland Halbe

ESO Hotel
Cerro Paranal, Chile
Designed by Auer + Weber Architekten
15 minutes of fame: Featured in Quantum of Solace (2008)

Daniel Craig/James Bond running atop the ESO Hotel in the film’s climax

5)

Disney Opera House
Los Angeles
Designed by Frank Gehry
15 minutes of fame: Featured in The Soloist (2009)

Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx in ‘The Soloist’

6)

The Skyline Residence
Los Angeles
Designed by Belzberg Architects
15 minutes of fame: Doubled as Ryan Gosling’s absurd bachelor pad in Crazy Stupid Love (2011)

7)

Phaeno Science Center
Wolfsburg, Germany
Designed by Zaha Hadid
15 minutes of fame: Doubled as a secret lair in The International (2009) —the building was photoshopped at the bottom of a ravine at the edge of the sea

Stills from ‘The International’

8)

 Photo: Oli Scarff, Getty Images

30 St. Mary Axe (“The Gherkin”)
London
Designed by Foster + Partners
15 minutes of fame: See in Woody Allen’s Match Point (2005). The interiors double as Jonathan Rhys-Meyers’ office

Hard times inside the Gherkin, from “Match Point”

9)

Burj Khalifa
Dubai, UAE
Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM)
15 minutes of fame: Site of a nefarious nuclear missile exchange in Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol (2011)

Tom Cruise scaling the side of the Burj

10)

The Standard, New York
New York
Designed by Ennead Architects
15 minutes of fame: One of its rooms doubled as the, ahem, “boom-boom room” in Shame (2012)

Bonus

Photo: Jens Passoth

EggO House
Prague, Czech Republic
Designed by A69 Architects
15 minutes of fame: Featured in Kanye West’s masterpiece Runaway (2010)

Existential-Kanye on the roof of the EggO House, from ‘Runaway’

by Architizer Editors

posted in Uncategorized

tagged architecture in movies, contemporary buildings in movies, Crazy Stupid Love, hollywood, James Bond, Kanye West, Match Point, Mission Impossible, movies, oscars, Shame, the Gherkin, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Twilight, zaha hadid

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