This article was commissioned by Asian Film Archive (Singapore) as part of their ‘Monographs’ series. The piece explores the intersection between architecture and cinema as spatial artistic practices and cinema as an architectural ‘form’ and structure. The piece goes on to consider how architectural representations have been reflected in contemporary Asian cinema, particularly in relation to representations of the city past and present. The films discussed include works by ‘architect-filmmakers’ (trained and/or practising) as well as filmmakers offering critical comments on contemporary architectural forms within wider narratives on urban experience.

The ‘architect-filmmakers’ discussed include Taiwanese American architect, director and producer Steve Chen of Cambodia-based collective Anti-Archive, Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Filipino director Shireen Seno, the latter two having both studied architecture before turning to cinema. Films by other Anti-Archive filmmakers are also discussed, including work by French-Cambodian director Davy Chou and Cambodian filmmaker Kavich Neang, as well as Thai filmmakers Aditya Assarat and Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit.

The piece starts by taking examples from Japanese cinema as representative of a cartography through which to view and explore the city on screen in Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953),while equally discussing the enduring thematic concern of catastrophe (man-made and natural) in Japanese cinema as illustrative of lived experiences and the need to document them, for example in Naomi Kawase’s curated collection of shorts 3:11 A Sense of Home (2011) and Katsuya Tomita’s Tenzo(2019). A discussion of Ai Weiwei’s Ordos 100 (2012) explores a utopian view of architecture and imagined cities, as does Gavin Hipkins representation of the Indian ‘garden’ city of Chandigarh in City of Tomorrow (2017).

Urbanisation and memory emerge as key thematic representations that have concerned a variety of Asian filmmakers, andin this article the close relationship shared by the two disciplines of cinema and architecture emerge, both being concerned with space, light and structure and a relationship with the individual and human experience.