…and the Oscar for best building goes to…

From the mundane to the magnificent, the idyllic to the iconic, buildings and architecture have played their part since film making began. Here, our panel of judges has selected their top 10 favourite movie buildings. But we want to know what your favourites are. Lights, camera, action…

Remember Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 movie The Shining? It’s a chilling story of caretaker Jack Torrance’s breakdown after arriving with his family for the winter at the sprawling Overlook Hotel.

The film is one example of a movie in which a real piece of architecture, in this case the Timberline Lodge in Oregon, plays a role at least as important as the human actors. But there are others. Don Siegel’s Escape From Alcatraz was filmed inside Alcatraz Island prison itself. When child of Satan Damien Thorn foams at the mouth and tries to bite his mother in 1976 shocker The Omen, it’s the looming sight of Guildford Cathedral that throws him into a rage. And would King Kong have been as sensational if Kong had scaled a shopping centre instead of the iconic Empire State Building?

Buildings, whatever their shape, size or purpose, are the unsung heroes of Hollywood. They are used to evoke feelings of tension and fear in audiences, to drive the plot of a film, or to create a sense of another time or place.

Production teams often go to extreme lengths to secure the right location, explains Ian Freer, assistant editor at Empire magazine: “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.”

Even at a time when computer visual effects and elaborate studio sets are the norm, there’s still huge demand for the real thing, says Harvey Edgington, head of the National Trust’s film unit: “Often buildings feature very fleetingly, so the cost of building a mock up would be immense, and directors like the authenticity of filming the real thing. Occasionally a combination of film and computer generated images is used, as in the latest Harry Potter movie The Deathly Hallows where Hardwick Hall was morphed into the sinister Malfoy Manor.”

Here, CM‘s critics select their top 10 movies in which a building plays a pivotal role. Films were selected based on the fact that they would be known to the audience, whether the building was integral to the film’s success, and the extent of building’s overall power and impact on the film.

However, our list is not exclusive and readers and the public are invited to vote for their own favourites via the CIOB website www.ciob.org.uk or via Twitter @THECIOB.

Our critics

Jane Crowther, associate editor at Total Film magazine; Ian Freer, assistant editor at Empire magazine; Harvey Edgington, head of the National Trust’s Film Unit; Concetta Sidoti, film MA graduate and freelance journalist; and CM’s contributing editor Stephen Cousins.

Could Have Been A Contender….

Many other movies were considered for our top 10, but didn’t quite match those chosen for impact or influence.

Sci-fi enthusiasts will remember Luke Skywalker’s underground desert home in Star Wars, filmed at a real troglodyte village in Matmata, Tunisia. Crime thrillers The Rock and Escape From Alcatraz gave audiences a voyeuristic glimpse of life inside the confines of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. For a bit of English heritage Enigma features Churchill’s Secret Intelligence and Computers HQ Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, while children-bred-for-their-organs movie Never Let Me Know used Richmond’s austere Ham House as the location for their school.

The 1999 movie Entrapment sees a dramatic heist in Kuala Lumpur’s mighty Petronas Towers and who knows the hoops the makers of the Bourne Ultimatum had to jump through to film that chase scene in Waterloo Station.

Mentions should also go to: The Omen (Guildford Cathedral), Shakespeare in Love (The Globe Theatre), If (Cheltenham College), The Passenger (Gaudi’s La Pedrera) and Diamonds Are Forever (John Lautner’s Elrod House).

Your Top 10

Do you agree with our choices? Construction Manager and the CIOB are calling on members and the public to register their favourite buildings in films via the link at www.ciob.org.uk or on Twitter @ THECIOB. You have until 27 July to vote.

1 King Kong (1933)

The Empire State Building

In the modern era of digital effects and seemingly endless disaster movie releases, it’s hard to imagine the astonishment cinema audiences must have felt in 1933 upon seeing a giant gorilla scale America’s tallest building. Such was the impact of the climactic scene, in which King Kong hangs from the building’s mast swatting planes from the sky, that just two years after the building’s completion, in 1931, it was already ingrained in American culture. The film was subsequently remade in 1976 and 2005.

“It’s become such a part of US heritage that when the actress Fay Wray, who played heroine Ann Darrow, died in 2004 the building’s lights were dimmed for 15 minutes in her memory,” says Empire’s Ian Freer. “And to mark the film’s 50th anniversary, a huge 27-metre tall inflatable King Kong sculpture was placed on the mast above the observation deck.”

2 Die Hard (1988)

Fox Plaza, LA

There cannot be many buildings more intrinsic to a plot than the Fox Plaza tower block, aka Nakatomi Plaza. As hero John McClane, played by Bruce Willis, plummets down lift shafts, runs barefoot across glass-strewn offices, crawls through ventilation ducts, and even jumps from the roof to outwit a group of German terrorists, there’s barely a scene in which the building doesn’t feature. Located in Century City Los Angeles, Fox Plaza is also production company 20th Century Fox’s HQ and filming took place on empty floors at night.

“Directors often choose buildings for practical reasons such as proximity, ease of filming, getting equipment in and out etc, so filming in the same building must have saved a lot of time and money,” says Empire’s Freer.

3 Blade Runner (1982)

Ennis House

Ridley Scott’s science fiction masterpiece is a dystopian vision of Los Angeles circa 2019, a brooding, acid-rain soaked mega-city where the collision of eastern and western cultures has given rise to a magnificent, but disturbing mix of architectural styles.

The 700-storey skyscrapers, factory chimneys spewing fire and the pyramid-like HQ building of synthetic human “replicant” manufacturer Tyrell Corp are impressive, but it’s the interior of main protagonist Rick Deckard’s apartment, filmed at Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1924-built Ennis House that leaves the most lasting impression. The real building is one of four homes Wright designed in an experimental “textile block” style and sits on a hilltop north of downtown LA.

“The Ennis House works perfectly in this movie because it’s very modern-looking, but timeless at the same time, it’s an incredible feat of architecture,” says Total Film’s Jane Crowther. “The patterned stonework is something you don’t see every day, which gives you a real sense of being in another time and place.”

4 Get Carter (1971)

Trinity Square multi-storey car park in Gateshead

When gangster Jack Carter, played by Michael Caine, returns to his hometown of Newcastle following the murder of his brother, his unrelenting, bloody revenge is played out against the grim background of Tyneside in the early 1970s.

Trinity Square’s brutalist concrete aesthetic personified this dark mood, most notably when Carter beats up child-porn pushing Cliff Brumby on one of the stairwells, then throws him several storeys to his death. The building was sadly demolished in 2010, but in a concession to fans, this January Gateshead Council began selling commemorative tins of the debris.

“I can’t think of a better use of location to portray that 1970s feeling of corruption, industrial strife and national angst,” says Empire’s Freer.

5 The Shining (1980)

The Timberline Lodge

Jack Nicholson gives a memorable performance as psycho dad Jack Torrance, but the movie’s real star is the isolated Overlook Hotel he and his family inhabit one winter. The ageing decor, long corridors, and cavernous empty rooms create the sense of a lingering and evil spiritual presence that influences Jack into violence, and plagues his son with horrific visions. The exterior shots were filmed at Timberline ski lodge in Oregon, while the interior scenes were shot in sets built to match the 1927-built Ahwahnee Lodge in Yosemite National Park.

“The film plays with our ideas of what is comforting. You’d expect a ski lodge to be bustling and lively, but it’s the exact opposite, it’s disquieting,” says Total Film’s Crowther. “Rumour has it that Kubrick was asked to change the number on the door of the most haunted room in the film because the Timberline was afraid it might put off their guests.”

6 The Fisher King (1991)

Grand Central Terminal

With its imposing Beaux Arts-style neo classicism and huge vaulted ceiling, New York’s Grand Central Terminal is a favourite among movie-makers, but Terry Gilliam adds magic to the location during a dream sequence in which hundreds of commuters on their way to work spontaneously pair up and waltz across the concourse under the shimmering lights of a mirror ball.

“I like the idea that today people might be going through the station and smiling to themselves thinking of that scene, which is an amazing thing for a film to achieve,” says Empire’s Freer.

7 The Truman Show (1998)

Seaside, Florida

Truman Burbank is the unwitting star of a reality TV show that follows every minute of his life, and his all-American hometown of Seahaven, with its white picket fences and manicured front lawns, helps fuel his growing realisation that every aspect of his life is scripted and all his friends are actors.

The real 400-home Seaside development provided the perfect backdrop for the movie — each dwelling was built to strict limits on building type, size and details, there are even laws on how front lawns and gardens should be maintained.

“The film plays with that idea of American suburbia and the apple pie vision of America,” says the National Trust’s Harvey Edgington. “It’s a frightening, oppressive artificial world made more scary by the thought that it actually exists.”

8 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Thamesmead Estate/Skybreak House

In south London, Thamesmead’s sprawling mass of interconnecting walkways and elevated flats were seen as futuristic in the 1960s, but that dream soon faded as residents felt disconnected from the street and from each other, vandalism occurred and promised plans for retail and transport developments were scrapped. A perfect setting, then, for this bleak futuristic vision of Britain where delinquent youths roam the city in search of “a bit of the old ultra-violence”.

A disturbing rape scene was filmed inside the 1965-built Skybreak house in Hertfordshire, designed by Norman Foster and Richard Rogers’ firm Team 4.

“A brilliant example of a morally degraded Britain and Kubrick picked his locations perfectly to reflect that,” says the National Trust’s Harvey Edgington.

9 The International (2009)

Guggenheim Museum

“The most challenging and complex thing I’ve ever done” is how director Tom Tykwer describes his decision to build a full-size replica of the Guggenheim Museum to stage a frenetic gun fight. It took 16 weeks to erect the structure, based on Frank Lloyd Wright’s original drawings, inside an old warehouse.

“It’s a great example of a director introducing fun into a very staid setting,” says Empire’s Freer. “Museums are usually about quiet reverence and appreciating art in awed hushed tones, so to have a gun fight is a blast. It’s hard not to cringe as you see Clive Owen shooting chunks out of the perfect white walls.”

10 Rillington Place (1971)

10 Rillington Place

Richard Attenborough plays real-life serial killer John Reginald Christie, who during the 1940s and 50s murdered at least six women. The viewer’s fear is heightened by the knowledge that filming actually took place inside Christie’s house, renamed Ruston Close after the killings. It was subsequently demolished.

“10 Rillington Place is a cinematic house of horror up there with Amityville and the Last House on the Left,” says film MA Concetta Sidoti. “Worse, the house is the murderer’s accomplice: the flat to let is the bait that traps Tim and [victim] Beryl Evans, Christie uses the household gas to subdue victims, and later he buries them in his garden.”