Architecture of Time

A film is an act of space making, which makes itself seen, an act of building shaped in time.

This class will examine what we can learn when we consider filmmaking as a critical spatial practice. Using a combination of film theory and practical workshops, students will learn to make films that interrogate our built environment and consider what film can teach us about how we understand, represent, and design space.

Architecture and film share an interdisciplinary correspondence, a desire to build worlds for spectators to inhabit. One may view film language as very different from that of space, but is it? If we accept that buildings and cities are instruments of time, and both are as much of the mind as they are physical, then it is easy to see how film and architecture share a visual and material world. The perception of a space is as much defined by its associations as by its physical qualities. When we watch a film, we register all the mental, sensual, and physical faculties that are engaged in a particular space at a precise time and yet such permanence does not have to be a building that is recognizable by its material appearance. Let us equate filmic experience to that of physical space and consider what film can teach us about how we interrogate and engage with architecture.

The accepted image of architecture on film has become acclimatized to conventional, static, ocular-centric, and binary representations of the so-called ‘man-made environment.’ In response to this position, the course will introduce the idea of the architectural essay film, as an alternative way to think of architecture, where openness, fluidity, and interdisciplinary create links between space making and film language. Drawing on the work of experimental filmmakers, such as Chantal Ackerman, Chris Marker, and Maya Deren, each session will interrogate how film, as a visual essay, can provide an infrastructure where tolerance and hope allow for a slow engagement with the complexities of architecture. Screenings will be accompanied with key texts by critical thinkers in the fields of film and architectural theory, such as Beatriz Colomina, Giuliana Bruno, and Vivian Sobchack, to build on a distinct analytical foundation, from where students will be invited to establish critical perspectives. Supporting ideas not merely advancing in a single direction, but which are interwoven and developed as a carpet, that delve between the gaps of each field of study, architecture and film. The intention is not to fulfill a preconceived goal, but to explore a space built on polysemy and multiplicity, which demonstrates the possibilities that arise from examining space-making from a cinematic dimension.

No filmmaking experience is required. 

The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 3rd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. As this course meets on Monday, the first meeting of this course will be on Tuesday, September 3rd. It will meet regularly thereafter.