Course Description

The Frame and Beyond: Mediating Film and Architecture

Prof: Paul Lukez
TA: Jim Bruneau

Preface: The design of a Film School will provide this studio with an opportunity to explore how film and filmmaking can inform the architectural design process. We will investigate the overlapping domains of film and architecture, their similarities and differences, especially as they apply to issues of space and time.

Film, according to Erwin Panofsky, can be defined as the "dynamization of space, and the spatialization of time." Time in film can be collapsed (i.e. one hour becomes one minute) or extended ((one minute becomes an hour) see Steven Holl's Design for the Palazzo del Cinema in Venice). Time in architecture, however, is revealed to us as a measure of our movement through space.

Sergei Eisenstein in "Montage and Architecture," distinguishes cinema from architecture by the "spatial eye's" path. In cinema the eye follows an imaginary route through a series of objects, "through sight as well as mind" revealing "diverse positions passing in front of an immobile spectator." In architecture, Esienstein argues, the spectator moves "through a series of carefully disposed phenomena" which are observed with "his visual sense."

Whether in film or architecture, the script / narrative can provide structure to the episodes encountered by the eye on its path through space and time. Choisy describes the masterful composition of the Acropolis as if viewed by the eye of a filmmaker, offering an architectural sequence "subtly composed, shot by shot." More recently, contemporary architects such as Bernard Tschumi (Manhattan Transcripts) and Rem Koolhaas have used film and script as themes in their own work.

The Design Challenge: Film concerns itself primarily, but not exclusively, to that which is revealed to the viewer frame by frame. Architecture and urban design must contend not only with the spaces visible within a frame of view, but the order, structure and tectonics of the spaces within and outside the frame. By focusing on Tectonics, or the art of joining material and space, we will attempt to mediate the overlapping realms of film and architecture. Program and Site A Film School affiliated with a local university will be built on one third of Copp's Hill Terrace, an underutilized park designed by Olmstead's Office (1876- 1897.) The sloped site straddles a historic graveyard (Copp's Hill Burial Ground) and Commercial Street, a busy thoroughfare which bounds the North End's waterfront district. Besides offering commanding views of the harbor, it provides a spatial respite from the North End's dense fabric.

The Film School teaches the full range of film making skills, employing traditional and digital techniques / technologies. Students will learn about scriptwriting, production (audio and film), theory and criticism. The facility will service students, faculty, visiting artists/scholars, staff and general public. A BI-annual film festival will require a large indoor and outdoor theatre. Even though a Film School requires many darkened spaces, the potential of a film school to activate an urban setting by being open and transparent must be resolved through architectural invention.

Process: The studio will be drawing intensive, with special emphasis placed on understanding how architectural space is perceived (parallax) and represented. Sketching and perspectival skills will be developed using multiple media (charcoal, pastels etc.) as vehicles for understanding the qualities of light and surface, and their role in defining spatial experiences.

The intuitive qualities of the initial design explorations will be complimented by a series of analytical exercises. These exercises will heighten student's understanding of the relationships between systems operating on a densely layered site. In addition this method of layered dissection will be used to analyze architectural precedents so as to better understand the relationships between a building's multiple systems, both built and spatial.

Besides viewing Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire", texts about or relating to film and architecture (by Eisenstein, Choisy, Vidler, Deleuze, Holl, Kostoff, Porphyrious, Frampton and others) will serve as the studio's intellectual armature. In addition, there will be several local field trips (a film school etc.)

Final Product: The ongoing projects and exercises will be documented and compiled in a studio "scrapbook" so as to provide students with a record of their own work and that of their peers. Beautifully crafted representations of final designs, based on conceptual clarity, are encouraged.