Glamour and luxury cannot survive without one another. The former is the appeal, the latter is its justification. Based upon a visual language of signifiers, an audience is required for their existence. And these associations concretize into myths when placed in the centre of the popular consciousness; physically, on a public stage for the displays of this wealth. These various realms, grand hotels, theaters, nightclubs, restaurants, and boutiques, make up the fashionable milieux. This is the channel through which social privilege can interact with the city. The way a place acquires the aura of desirability depends on the balance between exclusivity and accessibility. The institutions of consumption, display, and entertainment are the tools for the reinforcement and dissemination of this aura. The architecture of these elite enclaves is the driving force of the sensory experience to a city.
The movies of the golden age of Hollywood captured the time when playgrounds of the nouveau riche were being established. Cote d'Azur, Rome, New York, and Paris acquired unprecedented respectability and reverence through these injections of Hollywood glamour. "To Catch a Thief", "La Dolce Vita", and "Breakfast at Tiffany's", have sustained appeal because they fuel dreams of escape or the allure of self-transformation. That is why these films deal with an outsider's impression of luxury; a legendary heterotopia and the assault to gain access into it. These films are used to triangulate the key components of the architectural discord in motion. The built form proves that luxury has a format, bounded in space and time.
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