In AN ARCHITECTURE OF DESIRE, the manifestations of desire, and the opportunities for a clarity of observation, presented themselves during the filming in unforeseen ways. Like all rhythmic structures, the film is meant to be understood through the body and senses, as well as through the conceptual mind. "Davis's earlier explorations of the body and sensuality come to fruition in this, her latest film. Through rigorous cross-cutting and use of extreme close-ups, manmade and natural manifestations of architecture merge with the physical body into palpable delineations of form and function." -- San Francisco Cinematheque program notes

I think of this film as one that led me very precisely through its composition. First, I was fascinated during the winter and spring in the "city of the dead"-Graceland-the graveyard containing magnificent, monumental, and some whimsical tombs, as final resting real estate for significant and wealthy Chicago families. Then I thought, if I could really see closely with my lens the surface of the skin of the human body, the barrier between the outside world and the living body; that I could touch the knowledge of what was inside, and unseeable. Of course I only met up with its limits. The next winter, I returned to Chaco Canyon, the ancient pueblos of the Anasazi (ancestors of the contemporary Hopi people). I filmed all day in the Kivas. It had snowed, so I could not get out on the dirt roads and was forced to spend the night there in my car. I woke up suddenly, anxious, in the light of the full moon, to see a large black cat, like a panther, moving down the cliff, and coming directly toward me. He passed within five feet of me, and then moved away, toward the Kivas. The next day, I read that Anasazi records speak of a race of black panthers, held sacred, and native to the area, but which have now been extinct for centuries. (Sandra Davis)