The Mediapolis Q&A: Merrill Schleier and Paul Newland’s <i>Cinematic Starchitecture: The Celebrity Status of Urban Architectural Structures in Film</i>

Schleier, Merrill, and Newland, Paul

no. 2, Q & A, vol. 11September 9, 2026<September 10, 2026

The Mediapolis Q&A: Merrill Schleier and Paul Newland’s Cinematic Starchitecture: The Celebrity Status of Urban Architectural Structures in Film

Merrill Schleier and Paul Newland extend the conversation from their new edited collection Cinematic Starchitecture through a Q&A with select contributors.

Dossiers, no. 2, vol. 11September 7, 2026<September 9, 2026

Diffused History: Generative AI and the Crisis of Architectural Memory

Joel McKim

Generative AI turns architectural history into style. Joel McKim traces how image models produce a "generic pastness" that suits luxury renders and reactionary city-building alike, and how some practitioners are pushing them somewhere else entirely.

Dossiers, no. 1, vol. 10April 17, 2025<April 17, 2025

Concrete Cinema / cinema concrète

Michael Pigott

What happens when a Brutalist building becomes a screen? Drawing on the Concrete Cinema project in Coventry, Michael Pigott explores the affordances and potentials of outdoor moving image projection for the analysis and critique of architecture.

Mediapolis Now, no. 4, vol. 8November 22, 2023<December 14, 2023

Voices Episode 4: Monica Degen and Gillian Rose on The New Urban Aesthetic

Scott Rodgers

In the latest episode of our Voices podcast series, Monica Degen and Gillian Rose discuss with Scott Rodgers their recent book exploring the emerging and varied digitalisation of urban aesthetics.

Dossiers, no. 3, vol. 8September 28, 2023<September 30, 2023

Motels, Automobility, and Social Immobility in American Cinema

Danielle Rae Childs

Danielle Childs explores the transformation of the motel in American cinema from a temporary pit-stop to a post-recession purgatory that epitomizes marginalization and social immobility.

Dossiers, no. 3, vol. 8September 25, 2023<September 29, 2023

The Nest in the Shell: Postwar Automobility and Film Noir Cars

Michael Stock

Michael Stock develops a phenomenological reading of automobility in film noir, arguing that the contradictory space of the car – “a nest within a shell” – is frequently depicted as destabilizing the family home.

no. 2, On Teaching, Student Voices, vol. 8June 12, 2023<June 12, 2023

Temporal Possibilities of Set Design and Architecture in Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle

Anna Molloy

In this Student Voices essay, Anna Molloy explicates the architectural set design of Jacques Tati's film Mon Oncle.

no. 2, On Teaching, Student Voices, vol. 8June 12, 2023<June 28, 2023

Columbus Plays Itself

Charlie Tynan

In this Student Voices essay, Vassar student Charlie Tynan analyzes architecture and emotionality in the 2017 film Columbus.

Dossiers, no. 1, vol. 8March 31, 2023<April 4, 2023

Wanghong Urbanism for our Single Planet

Anna Liu

Can the phenomenon of wanghong urbanism be harnessed for positive change? Reflecting on some of her projects, the architect Anna Liu discusses the challenge of creating landmarks for a digital world and the potential for design to catalyse environmental awareness.

no. 5, Q & A, vol. 6November 19, 2021<November 19, 2021

The Mediapolis Q&A: Race and the Suburbs

Merrill Schleier, Elizabeth Patton, Angel Matos and Amy Corbin

Merrill Schleier discusses her latest book, Race and the Suburbs in American Film (SUNY Press, 2021), with three of the book's contributing authors, Elizabeth Patton, Angel Matos, and Amy Corbin.

no. 5, Roundtables, vol. 6November 18, 2021<November 18, 2021

Constructing Precarity: Media and Social Housing in the French Banlieue

Isabelle McNeill

Can cinema generate alternative visions of precarious life in the banlieue? Isabelle McNeill investigates scenes of domestic interiors that challenge the dominant media imagery of French social housing and its high rise architecture.

From the Archive, no. 3, vol. 6July 6, 2021<July 7, 2021

The Ed Ruscha Streets of Los Angeles Project

Mark Shiel

A collaborative team at the Getty Research Institute has been working to digitize and analyze the influential Los Angeles street photography of Ed Ruscha. Mark Shiel provides an overview of the project and discusses parallels between Ruscha’s photographs and LA cinema in the 1960s.