Overlook Architectures
Reconstructing “The Overlook Hotel,” Shining, Stanley Kubrick, 1980
Workshop | ENSASE Semaine Buissonnière | Evelyne Chalaye, Filippo Fanciotti, Boris Hamzeian, Pierre-Albert Perrillat, | February 2025
Content
“As in Shining, architecture goes beyond bricks and mortar.”
—David Lynch
“We built models for every hotel room. Because of the supernatural nature of the story, we did not want an expressionist set. (…) To ensure that these sets were entirely authentic, the prop department photographed everything needed to reproduce even the smallest details at scale. We then built the models, photographed them, lit them, and modified them according to the requirements of each scene. We avoided the cliché of the haunted hotel.”
—Stanley Kubrick
The workshop focuses on the study of space and the reconstruction of the various “rooms” within the Overlook Hotel in Shining. Michel Chion describes Shining as “a horror film without darkness, without the slightest corner escaping the light.” Indeed, in a film conceived by Stanley Kubrick as “the most terrifying film in the world,” none of the expected “Gothic” devices appear: no chiaroscuro effects, no conventional scenery, and no visual artifice disrupts the clear perception of the spaces themselves.
On the contrary, primarily through extended tracking shots, the film emphasizes the hotel’s deserted spaces: its rooms with kitsch interiors, its vast and empty kitchens, and its endless corridors, whose floors are covered with improbable geometric patterns.
These spaces—rooms, corridors, halls, and elevators—are arranged according to a labyrinthine structure that cannot be represented by any coherent overall plan. The uncanny character of the Overlook Hotel’s interior form emerges precisely from this improbable geography, from the aberrant coherence of its spaces, and from the omnipresence of mirror-like environments.
As Sigmund Freud explains, the feeling of the uncanny—das Unheimliche—arises from something heimlich or heimisch, something familiar or homelike, that has undergone repression and subsequently returns. At the perceptual level, this feeling manifests itself through déjà vu. The Unheimlich, the uncanny, “is in reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and long-established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression.”
“As in Shining, architecture goes beyond bricks and mortar.”
—David Lynch
“We built models for every hotel room. Because of the supernatural nature of the story, we did not want an expressionist set. (…) To ensure that these sets were entirely authentic, the prop department photographed everything needed to reproduce even the smallest details at scale. We then built the models, photographed them, lit them, and modified them according to the requirements of each scene. We avoided the cliché of the haunted hotel.”
—Stanley Kubrick
The workshop focuses on the study of space and the reconstruction of the various “rooms” within the Overlook Hotel in Shining. Michel Chion describes Shining as “a horror film without darkness, without the slightest corner escaping the light.” Indeed, in a film conceived by Stanley Kubrick as “the most terrifying film in the world,” none of the expected “Gothic” devices appear: no chiaroscuro effects, no conventional scenery, and no visual artifice disrupts the clear perception of the spaces themselves.
On the contrary, primarily through extended tracking shots, the film emphasizes the hotel’s deserted spaces: its rooms with kitsch interiors, its vast and empty kitchens, and its endless corridors, whose floors are covered with improbable geometric patterns.
These spaces—rooms, corridors, halls, and elevators—are arranged according to a labyrinthine structure that cannot be represented by any coherent overall plan. The uncanny character of the Overlook Hotel’s interior form emerges precisely from this improbable geography, from the aberrant coherence of its spaces, and from the omnipresence of mirror-like environments.
As Sigmund Freud explains, the feeling of the uncanny—das Unheimliche—arises from something heimlich or heimisch, something familiar or homelike, that has undergone repression and subsequently returns. At the perceptual level, this feeling manifests itself through déjà vu. The Unheimlich, the uncanny, “is in reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and long-established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression.”
Objective
Cinema has played—and continues to play—a major role in the culture of images and in the formation of contemporary imaginaries. Cinematic images permeate our perception of lived space and shape our interpretation of reality. Through a scenographic displacement—a model-simulacrum inspired by a “classic” film—we propose a reflection on the visual representation of architecture.
The workshop seeks to make students aware of the profound connections between the spatial language of cinema and contemporary approaches to architecture.
Working Methods
Teaching Team
Evelyne Chalaye – MCF TPCAU, ENSASE
Boris Hamzeian – MCFA HCA, ENSASE
Pierre-Albert Perrillat – Professor, TPCAU, ENSASE
Filippo Fanciotti – MCFA RA, LAPIS Laboratory, EPFL
Cinema has played—and continues to play—a major role in the culture of images and in the formation of contemporary imaginaries. Cinematic images permeate our perception of lived space and shape our interpretation of reality. Through a scenographic displacement—a model-simulacrum inspired by a “classic” film—we propose a reflection on the visual representation of architecture.
The workshop seeks to make students aware of the profound connections between the spatial language of cinema and contemporary approaches to architecture.
Working Methods
- Screening and analysis of selected sequences from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980).
- Group analysis of the film, organized by sequence.
- Identification of “iconic” scenes depicting “empty spaces” that are particularly characteristic of the Overlook Hotel.
- Graphic reconstruction of the spatial configuration of selected scenes, based on film stills extracted from the film. This preparatory work, intended as the basis for a three-dimensional reconstruction, should convey the character and atmosphere of each sequence within its narrative context: its uncanny quality.
- Subsequent reconstruction through a model-simulacrum at a scale of 1:10, intended to “theatricalize” the sequence through the most “realistic” approach possible. The model should make it possible to produce a photographic image analogous to the original cinematic image. See, for comparison, the “illusionistic” photographs produced from models by the German artist Thomas Demand.
Teaching Team
Evelyne Chalaye – MCF TPCAU, ENSASE
Boris Hamzeian – MCFA HCA, ENSASE
Pierre-Albert Perrillat – Professor, TPCAU, ENSASE
Filippo Fanciotti – MCFA RA, LAPIS Laboratory, EPFL
