The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) is on a mission to find out what the public thinks are the most iconic movie buildings of all time.
The CIOB is asking readers of Construction Manager magazine if they agree with its panel of film buffs on cinema’s leading buildings in an attempt to get people thinking about the role architecture plays in popular culture.
The list of movie buildings collated by Construction Manager magazine and the film critics includes those featured in King Kong (Empire State Building), The Shining (Overlook Hotel in the film, the Timberline Lodge, Oregon in real life), Die Hard (Fox Plaza tower block/Nakatomi Plaza), Get Carter (Trinity Square multi-storey car park in Gateshead) and Blade Runner (Ennis House, LA).
Ian Freer, assistant editor at Empire magazine, says, “It can take several months to cast the right building for a movie; teams are hired specifically to scour the world in search of locations, especially for sci-fi movies where directors want a specific aesthetic. Those decisions are not made lightly and it’s one of the reasons films today can cost up to $100m to make.”
And architecture is often a contributing factor in securing a film’s place in the history books. Michael Brown, CIOB’s deputy chief executive, says: “It’s difficult to imagine the classic plane-swatting scene in King Kong without the Empire State Building.
“When the original movie was made in 1933 the Empire State Building had only been completed two years earlier. It was then, and still is now, an icon of human creativity and achievement. Somehow Kong on any other building just wouldn’t have worked.”
To have your say on the most iconic movie buildings of all time, post your views on Construction-Manager.co.uk or tweet your views to @THECIOB. The poll closes on 27 July.
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