Narrative structures within architectural videos

This paper reports on a research programme concerning the communication of architectural information through the use of video. In recent years, the general public have become increasingly interested in and aware of architecture. This has been at least partly initiated through main stream television, and the established BBC series 'Building Sites'. This growing awareness of architecture, has provided the impetus for video to be considered as a 'new' means of communicating to architectural clients. This has in turn suggested an opportunity for architectural practices to enhance their communication to clients by the use of informative videos. If architectural videos are to be increasingly used in broadcast and for other forms of communication they should be well designed. But what is a good architectural video, and how should an architectural idealscenario be usefully portrayed in such a medium? This paper discusses the underlying structure of architectural videos as communicating media. This leads to the development of a theoretical model to aid the understanding of video communication through narrative analysis. This theoretical evaluation is bolstered by a series of empirical investigations relating to narrative reception and recall. © 1992 Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd.