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

1st Edition

Cinematic Starchitecture The Celebrity Status of Urban Architectural Structures in Film

Edited By Merrill Schleier, Paul Newland Copyright 2026
288 Pages 28 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

288 Pages 28 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
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... Read more

Introduction: what is cinematic starchitecture?

Merrill Schleier and Paul Newland 

Part 1: Starchitects and Cinema

1. Gaudí: Starchitecture, Iconicity, and Barcelona

Lucy Fisher

2. The Iconicity of Architectural Decay in Detroit: The Posthumous Cinematic Re-mediation of Albert Kahn

Brendan Kredell

3. Traces of a Proto-Starchitect: Erich Mendelsohn’s Architecture on Screen

Tim Bergfelder 

Part 2: Iconic Starchitecture in Cinema

4. Plaza and Fortress: Screening Lincoln Center’s Ambiguous Iconicity

Erica Stein

5. La La Land’s (2016) Griffith Observatory: Through the Nostalgic Lens of Rebel Without a Cause and the Studio-Era Musical

Merrill Schleier 

Part 3: Lofty Towers and Vertical Views

6. Tokyo Tower on Screen

Senjo Nakai

7. The Nearest Thing to Heaven: the Empire State Building as romantic icon

Paul Newland

8. Millennial Global Starchitecture in the City of London and its Cinematic “Other” in Rocks

Anna Viola Sborgi 

Part 4: Cinematic Starchitecture and Genre

9. Hong Kong Starchitecture and Action-Sci Fi Cinema

Lorrie Palmer

10. The Icon and the Grid: North by Northwest, the United Nations Building, and the Thriller Genre’s Media-Architecture Complex

Lawrence Webb

11. Building Dystopia: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Marin County Civic Center in THX 1138 (1971) and Gattaca (1997)

Jonathan Stubbs and Marko Kiessel 

Part 5: Architectural Typologies and Styles in Cinema

12. “Concrete Stardom”: Brutalism’s Cinematic Iconicity and the Spatial Imaginaries of London

Jonny Smith

13. Pensive Spectacles:  On Museal Gazes in Cinematic Starchitecture

Ekin Pinar

14. Poetic Referentiality: The Ocean Liner as Film Star

Roy Grundmann

 

Index

Biography

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 of Film and Architecture at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. He has published widely on representations of cities, landscapes, and architecture in literature and film.

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