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Arts & Communication Integrating films in city planning and urban design

films. As a powerful public medium, cinema continuously with its delicate ability to capture urban and social
portrays spaces, environments, events, symbols, and icons experiences, offers a more effective medium to appreciate
to educate and engage its audience. Given cities’ prominent these transformations. The film camera possesses a unique
role in films and the medium’s dynamic and vivid depiction capability to penetrate and capture our environment,
of urban landscapes, films provide an invaluable resource especially the human-built environment that constitutes
for teaching urban design. By presenting virtual spaces on the cityscape, in myriad and novel ways. The film presents
screen, films help viewers develop an understanding and and reveals what it records with unprecedented accuracy
emotional connection to them, enhancing their perception and detail, allowing for this visual material’s critical
of real-world places. This method also fosters new recomposition and reconfiguration. This dual function of
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perspectives on the use and functionality of urban spaces. cinema – documenting and reinterpreting urban spaces –
As paraphrased by the trapeze artist in Wings of makes it an invaluable tool for understanding the dynamic
Desire, movies render the city a living story. This narrative nature of cities.
comprises people claiming, occupying, and mapping Moreover, the cinema serves as a running memory
urban form and space. Urban complexity, in turn, enables of the city. It documents the evolving urban landscape,
individuals to construct highly personalized relationships capturing change, continuity, and contrast moments.
with their environment, fostering intimacy, social Through its visual narratives, cinema preserves the essence
exchange, introspection, and conflict. These dynamics of the city’s past, reflects its present, and even anticipates
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make the city alternately dramatic, comedic, romantic, its future. As Bruno highlighted, film is not just a passive
and tragic. In urban contexts where exterior and interior, recorder of reality but an active participant in urbanism’s
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public and private, are often separated by little more than cultural and spatial dialogues. The notion of the flâneur
a wall or window, minor variations in form, down to the provides a foundational understanding of how individuals
curb, sidewalk, or step, can significantly influence people’s experience urban spaces, but cinema enhances this
behavior, providing a rich vein for exploration in urban concept by allowing for a deeper, more comprehensive
design. 43 exploration. While the flaneur’s experience is limited to
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To effectively analyze urban environments, it is crucial their observations and pace, the film medium transcends
to incorporate perspectives from various academic these limitations, offering multiple perspectives and
disciplines, including sociology, history, architecture, and temporal layers that enrich our understanding of urban
literature. As Lefebvre articulates, the city is a collective environments. As Benjamin noted, the cinematic city is
and social organism. However, urban life is visible and constantly in motion, reflecting the fluidity and complexity
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observable but inherently multi-layered and complex. This of urban life.
complexity presents both a valuable opportunity and a By studying the portrayal of cities in films, we gain
significant challenge for researchers. Therefore, examining valuable perspectives on the spatial and social dynamics
the city through the lens of cinema can offer unique and that define urban environments. This cinematic approach
profound insights. Films can distill the complexities enables us to dissect the symbolic and real impacts of
of urban environments, capturing and reflecting their urban design and planning on daily life. As cities evolve,
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true essence. Cinema is invaluable in visualizing and films remain a critical medium for reflecting and shaping
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critiquing urban phenomena. Films like Metropolis and Her our understanding of urbanism. The narratives captured
delve into futuristic urban landscapes, offering speculative on screen mirror the complexities of urban life and inspire
insights that challenge contemporary urban planning and innovative thinking about the future of our cities. The
design paradigms. Documentaries such as Urbanized multifaceted interplay between the city and cinema ignites
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and Citizen Jane: Battle for the City highlight real-world the imaginations of both practitioners and scholars while
urban issues and activism, providing practical lessons for offering substantial epistemological promise. As a reflexive
current urban development practices. medium, film can unearth hidden layers and cultivate a
Cinema is much more than mere reflection of reality. heightened awareness of contemporary urban culture. It
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Analyzing the city through the projector’s lens requires empowers students to probe the symbolic construction of
a more functional method than the flâneur. The concept our environment, striking cognitive chords and exposing
of the flâneur, introduced by Charles Baudelaire and later the underlying conditions of modern society.
expanded by Walter Benjamin, represents an individual We can say in the end that movies serve as a vivid
who strolls through the city, observing and experiencing lesson in urbanism, demonstrating the importance
urban life in a leisurely, detached manner. 48,49 However, as of narrative in developing urban projects. As urban
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cities change continuously and rapidly, fictional cinema, location movies utilize the city’s abundant and often

Volume 3 Issue 1 (2025) 12 doi: 10.36922/ac.4130