Vahid Vahdat – författare

In the midst of Europe’s nineteenth-century industrial revolution, four men embarked on separate journeys to the wondrous Farangestan – a land of fascinating objects, mysterious technologies, heavenly women, and magical spaces. Determined to learn the secret of Farangestan’s advancements, the travelers kept detailed records of their observations. These diaries mapped an aspirational path to progress for curious Iranian audiences who were eager to change the course of history. Two hundred years later, Travels in Farangi Space unpacks these writings to reveal a challenging new interpretation of Iran’s experience of modernity. This book opens the Persian travelers’ long-forgotten suitcases, and analyzes the descriptions contained within to gain insight into Occidentalist perspectives on modern Europe. By carefully tracing the physical and mental journeys of these travelers, the book paints a picture of European architecture that is nothing like what one would expect.

In the midst of Europe’s nineteenth-century industrial revolution, four men embarked on separate journeys to the wondrous Farangestan – a land of fascinating objects, mysterious technologies, heavenly women, and magical spaces. Determined to learn the secret of Farangestan’s advancements, the travelers kept detailed records of their observations. These diaries mapped an aspirational path to progress for curious Iranian audiences who were eager to change the course of history. Two hundred years later, Travels in Farangi Space unpacks these writings to reveal a challenging new interpretation of Iran’s experience of modernity. This book opens the Persian travelers’ long-forgotten suitcases, and analyzes the descriptions contained within to gain insight into Occidentalist perspectives on modern Europe. By carefully tracing the physical and mental journeys of these travelers, the book paints a picture of European architecture that is nothing like what one would expect.

The long-established dialogue between architecture and film offers an interdisciplinary platform for a critical examination of spaces of in-between.Apart from architecture informing scenography and cities serving as backdrops to the moving image, films have actively participated in shaping the public opinion about architecture and its allied disciplines. While architecture and design may not necessarily be central themes in a film, their spatial contextualization of the narrative informs cinematic productions. Screen, Space, and the In-Between looks at both the filmic imagination/representation of architectural in-betweenness, as well as the in-between spaces within the inherent architectural structure of filmic expression.On the one hand, cinematic production serves as a site to project utopian fantasies of the built environment, and on the other hand, the processes, tools, and methods involved in both architecture and film, function as mediators between abstract ideation and its materialized manifestation.The book interrogates the filmic creation of spatial imaginaries through the anthropological lens, especially as the disciplines in the built environment react to the liminal spaces of the cinematic. It adopts cinematic experiences of the built environment as a vantage point to reframe ongoing theoretical debates about liminal spaces.Foreword by Mark Foster GageContributors: Giuliana Bruno, Beatriz Colomina, James F. Kerestes, Graham Harman, Ferda Kolatan, Juhani Pallasmaa, Eva Perez De Vega, Mehmet Sahinler, Patrik Schumacher, Maria Sieira, Alican Taylan, Vahid Vahdat, Jason Vigneri-Beane, Jon Yoder, Michael Young

The long-established dialogue between architecture and film offers an interdisciplinary platform for a critical examination of spaces of in-between.Apart from architecture informing scenography and cities serving as backdrops to the moving image, films have actively participated in shaping the public opinion about architecture and its allied disciplines. While architecture and design may not necessarily be central themes in a film, their spatial contextualization of the narrative informs cinematic productions. Screen, Space, and the In-Between looks at both the filmic imagination/representation of architectural in-betweenness, as well as the in-between spaces within the inherent architectural structure of filmic expression.On the one hand, cinematic production serves as a site to project utopian fantasies of the built environment, and on the other hand, the processes, tools, and methods involved in both architecture and film, function as mediators between abstract ideation and its materialized manifestation.The book interrogates the filmic creation of spatial imaginaries through the anthropological lens, especially as the disciplines in the built environment react to the liminal spaces of the cinematic. It adopts cinematic experiences of the built environment as a vantage point to reframe ongoing theoretical debates about liminal spaces.Foreword by Mark Foster GageContributors: Giuliana Bruno, Beatriz Colomina, James F. Kerestes, Graham Harman, Ferda Kolatan, Juhani Pallasmaa, Eva Perez De Vega, Mehmet Sahinler, Patrik Schumacher, Maria Sieira, Alican Taylan, Vahid Vahdat, Jason Vigneri-Beane, Jon Yoder, Michael Young

At their peak, architectural marvels such as the Sagrada Família, the Tower of London, the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba, and the Eiffel tower, had a combined annual visit of almost 16.4 million people. The animated icebound castle in Disney’s (2019) Frozen had 116.4 million views, from one single YouTube trailer, in less than 24 hours. The spaces of such massively consumed animation have for generations informed the architectural imagination of people across the globe and from very early in their lives. Yet, not only have the architectural disciplines remained rather absent in the design of these massively consumed spaces, architectural theory has likewise failed to articulate a framework to approach the architecture of animation. To address this void, this book offers an interdisciplinary approach to survey the role of space in animation, including in creating humorous moments in early cartoon shorts, generating action and suspense in Japanese anime, and even stimulating erotic pleasure in pornographic Hentai. Exploring the imagined architecture of animation, from early motion picture to digital animation and from computer graphics to game engines, offers an analytical frame to reconceptualize space.An Open Access version of Yuko Yoshida's chapter 'Animated Embodiments of Witnessing: An Architectural Narrative of Silence' is available on the Liverpool University Press website.