considerations on final drawings

this is a movie theater project (for cadiz, spain) by a student at the bartlett

more examples (click) here

the spectacle of cinema...

from the city...

to the country...

for the midterm review:
- site photographs that explain to the critics the site
- site plan or google maps printout with scheme  
- plans @1/16
- 3 sections which include part of the site+adjacent buildings (@1/16"=1'-0")
- study model of project (which can be opened to see main interior spaces)
- 3 film techniques and draw a perspective/axon that has collaged elements of 3 interiors (of the space of your choice) in a way that expresses how these techniques are expressed in your project.
- bring any of the previous projects that support your project (in terms of ideas or experiences)

(some) more information on the university

you can find the whole issue of arquitectura mexico devoted to the university:

and an issue of espacios (where the university is addressed on pp. 161-204) here:

(curated selection) student films...

and the nominees are...

the walk: https://youtu.be/3R65lwgamUw
hourglass finals https://youtu.be/X_mTZv8WTiE

regular/different path: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSngR5iNJbY

forgetting architecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8qqFp5IUQ4

danger of bristol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIqHWb7zU2g

creation in dreams revisited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhFxfvYqh0g 

world of dreams: https://youtu.be/RG35dLxExD8

stairs are telling a story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knA8TsT8QpQ&feature=youtu.be

and the academy award goes to...

things i like, things i hate

short example of filmed and found footage (around 7mins in length)

#cinepolisavantgarde hashtag

if you are using instagram... make sure you keep up and us updated with the studio #cinepolisavantgarde hashtag...

#cinepolisavantgarde/

Avant-Garde: Film Production and Analysis

... there is always a plot. There is a story that makes sense to me. But in the story, there are things that are more abstract. There are feelings, and cinema can say feelings and can say abstract thoughts. Cinema can go back in time, or forward, and it’s very magical. … What we need is ideas. That is the only thing we really need.

-        David Lynch, Ten Lessons in Filmmaking

The Cine-Eye is the art of organizing necessary movements of objects in space and time into a rhythmic artistic whole, in accordance with the characteristics of the whole and the internal rhythm of each object.

- Dziga Verov, We. A Version of a Manifesto.

Having seen and studied some forms of avant-garde film should prepare you to think about how these films operate and construct narratives; how they develop particular visual qualities; how they evoke emotions, etc.  These are done not only through the material presented but also by their organization (montage, cuts, focuses, etc.).  Cinema, as Lynch points out, also has the ability to use time and create new visions of the world and of ourselves.  But, at the center, is the idea: what is being attempted and why.

For the fist part of this assignment, you are to construct two short avant-garde films (around 8 minutes in length).  One of them has to be focused on architectural space, landscape, and/or urbanism.  The other can be focused on the theme of your choice.  However, both films have to have an idea behind them (ie. what is the intention of the film that you are producing? what is the meaning that you are trying to convey? how do the elements/effects/shots/montage work to support this idea? etc.)

The first film should be based on your own filmed footage.  The second should be composed of found footage – although it can also include your own footage.  You can find footage through websites such as YouTube, Vimeo, the Internet Archive, etc. or from films/shorts that you own.

Be sure to consider not only the narrative (and narrative logic/sequence) but also any textual information (in the form of voiceovers, captions, inter-titles, etc.).  Consider also the sound of the film: does it use music, ambient sounds, etc.?  How and when and for what purpose?  Also think about the transitions between scenes, effects, montage, etc.  Remember that still pictures can also be used and animated (ie. the so-called “Ken Burns” effect or as we saw in Chris Marker’s La Jetée).  Make sure that the films have a title, your name, and any credits (ie. film sources not your own, music, texts, etc).

It is expected that you learn to use some basic filmmaking software (ie. Apple’s Imovie or Adobe’s Premiere) and that you take advantage of the effects, transitions, filmic elements and devices, etc. that they provide (although you are not bound only to those).

some (graphic) ideas about image/plan relations

hannes meyer, mümliswil school


sergei eisenstein, montage sequence

stefan van biljon, the third man: film analysis



bernard tschumi, manhattan transcripts

Avant-Garde: Film Analysis

...each spectator creates an image along the representational guidance suggested by the author, leading him/her unswervingly towards knowing and experiencing the theme in accordance with his/her own personality, in his/her own individual way, proceeding from his/her own experience, from his/her own imagination, from the texture of his/her associations, from the features of his/her own character, temper, and social status.

- Sergei Eisenstein, Notes of a Film Director

The following films were created to do many things… but, most of all, they were intended to experiment with what the director/maker understood to be the very character or objective of film making.  Through them, the spectator is challenged; he/she is asked to comprehend not only the work itself but to understand reality differently. 

You will be assigned one of these films to study and diagram:

Charles Scheeler and Paul Strand, Manhatta, 1921

László Moholy-Nagy, Berliner Stilleben, 1926

Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy, Ballet Mecanique, 1924

Joseph Cornell, Rose Hobart, 1936

Maya Deren and Alexander Hamid, Meshes of the Afternoon, 1943

Bruce Conner, A Movie, 1958

Stan Brakhage, Dog Star Man, 1961-64

Chris Marker, La Jetée, 1962

Ernie Gehr, Serene Velocity, 1970

Bruce Baillie, Quick Billy, 1971

Pat O’Neil, Water and Power, 1989

Peter Tscherkassky, Outer Space, 1999

Eve Sussman, 89 Seconds at Alcázar, 2004

Alessandro Cima, Detective City Angel, 2011

For this analysis, begin by watching the film a number of times: looking to understand the narrative, the visual qualities, the emotions that it might try to evoke, etc.  Following this, do some research on the author(s) of the film and find any information that you can find that describes and elucidates it; see if this information matches what you understood the film to be about or its intention. 

Never try to convey your idea to the audience – it is a thankless and senseless task.  Show them life, and they’ll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.

– Andrei Tarkovski

One of the criticisms made of cinema is its distance from its audience.  Here, distance is defined as physical detachment; the passive perception of luminous information projected on a screen or other device.  In response, the filmmaker has sought to shock the viewers and denaturalize their experience in order to wake them up from their blasé slumber.  Avant-garde film, in particular, has sought ways through which to challenge the conventions of viewing through techniques that manipulate the image, narrative, time, experience, etc.  It has attempted to revive, through various means, that primal moment of 1896 when fear and terror gripped the movie going audience upon seeing for the first-time a train approaching on screen.

Architects have been fascinated with film since its earliest moments; in the relationship between time-space and in its ability to capture the urban environment.  In some cases, the filmic medium became a metaphor for the movement of the body through space and of new ways of seeing and organizing the world.  In others, the mechanical eye of the camera was understood as a metaphor for modernity itself and of the new inhabitants of the metropolitan environment.  Collaborations between filmmakers and architects had also been a large part of the investment by both mediums in each other: architects had been called on to design the spaces and worlds within which the actions take place.  This role, however, gradually declined as the camera became more able to, itself, create or capture distinct visions of space and the world. 

The function of this studio is to explore the role of avant-garde film and its potentials to generate new perceptions of the world; to challenge and displace; to shock and to heighten awareness.  The aim of the studio is to explore and to give form and architectural intentions to avant-gardist filmic techniques and technologies through representational and discursive strategies (textual, graphic, three-dimensional, composite, filmic, etc.).  As a point of departure, we will utilize representation and film to alter and modify our perceptions and understandings of the world and of lived experience itself.

Programmatically, the studio will articulate these investigations through a proposed Center for Avant-Garde Films for National University (UNAM) in Mexico City.