The Screening Room UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, DENVER ARCH 5140

Transcription

1 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, DENVER Department of Architecture Spring 2016 Amir Ameri CUB 515 ARCH 5140 The Screening Room The design problem for this studio is a cinema/screening room for the College of Arts and Media. The Cinema is our point of departure and the vehicle for the exploration of the link between building types and the cultural institutions they serve, i.e., the link between form, function, and ideology. The premise guiding this exploration is that edifices, intended or not, are ideological constructs, that they express ideas and as such reaffirm and reinforce or else critically engage the values, beliefs, ideas and the ideals of the culture they serve. How theses are formed and given architectonic form and what specific role buildings do or can play within the wider cultural context are some of the issues we will explore in this studio. After establishing a working definition of culture and exploring the ways in which culture is promoted and sustained by a host of institutions, we will probe the history of the cinema as a building type, identifying its formal continuities and discontinuities in time. We will try to account for the stylistic discontinuities in relation to an ever shifting cultural/ technological context. We will try to account for the continuities in functional distribution and spatial organization as the attributes of specific institutional demands and requirements whose purpose is the promotion and sustenance of a set of lasting cultural presuppositions about representation, reproduction, and mimesis.

2 A critical re-evaluation of these presuppositions will in turn mark the parameters of a new context for design. A context within which the link between the formal/architectural properties of the building type and the institutional/cultural presuppositions in question could neither be acknowledged nor ignored, neither reinforced nor discarded. A context within which there could be no intuitive and/or positive re-formulation of the building type in affirmation of the link, but only a critical de-formulation of the type in recognition of the link. The pedagogical intent of this design exercise is twofold. The goal is to foster and develop the type of analytical skills essential to deciphering the complex relationship between architecture and the culture industry it perpetually serves, i.e., the skills essential to the formation and evaluation of design ideas and programs. It is also the goal of this exercise to promote a conscious reevaluation of all the subconscious assumptions regarding spatial organization, the relationship of parts to whole, the inside to the outside, the particulars of volume and mass, solid and void, path and place, structure and material, ornamentation, proportion, scale, and others. This is with the intention of designing an environment that is, in the final count, all too familiar and yet all too alien, one that is neither a copy nor strictly an original. An environment, in other words, that speaks silently of the designer's ability to willfully manipulate the language of architecture as opposed to faithfully re-produce its various speech acts. You are encouraged to develop a specific program for your Screening Room with the following limitations: I. The project should not exceed 30,000 sq. ft. II. Provisions should be made for: a. An auditorium with a seating capacity of no more than 250. b. Lobby space c. Offices and work spaces for staff d. Storage and mechanical spaces e. Public facilities

3 III. Additional facilities to consider may include: a. Coffee shop b. Library c. Classrooms d. Store The semester will proceed according to the following tentative schedule: I. Building/Institutional analysis. January 20 - February 3 II. Spatial studies and explorations reflecting the above analysis. February 1 - February 10 III. Statement of Intent February 15 IV. Site/Context analysis February V. Programmatic response to all of the above February VI. Design(ed) reflections February 29 - April 25 VII. Presentation Proposal April 25 VIII. Final Presentation May 4 IX. Portfolio May 13 The final presentation will be treated as a design problem in its own right. You are encouraged to explore the limits of the conventions that pertain to architectural presentation and thereby design a presentation

4 that effectively communicates the issues grappled with throughout the term. The final presentation should include, as a point of departure, the conventional plan and perspectival drawings as well as a detailed Model. As an extension of the final presentation, you are required to submit a portfolio of your work, by May 13. Your portfolio should document your ideas, your progress through the term, and the final project. The portfolio should be submitted as a PDF document for high resolution print on a disk that contains all the related images in JPG format (maximum quality). Much of the studio time in the first half of the term will be devoted to group discussions and collective review and analysis of individual work. We will devote more time to individual reviews and discussions in the second half of the term. Your performance in class will be evaluated based on active participation in group discussions and reviews, vigorous exploration of the issues at hand, as well as analytical rigor and willful manipulation of the language of architecture as opposed to formal reiteration in the absence of a thorough comprehension of all the incumbent issues. The ultimate criterion is the successful completion and presentation of a project that realizes a coherent and rigorous thesis based on a comprehensive analysis of the nature of the assigned problem. For a detailed description of the studio outcomes and evaluative criteria, please see the Studio Outcomes document online. Required Reading Edmund Leach, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Penguin Books, New York, 1974 Oysters, Smoked Salmon, and Stilton Cheese, pp Amir H. Ameri, The Architecture of the Illusive Distance, Ashgate Publications, Burlington, 2015 Introduction, pp.1-9 Roland Barthes, Mythologies, Hill and Wang, New York, 2012 Myth Today, pp Judith Butler, The Judith Butler Reader, Sara Salih Ed., Blackwell, Malden, 2004 Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversion, pp Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, Schocken Books, New York, 1978 The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, pp Sigmund Freud, Studies in Parapsychology, Collier Books, New York, 1977 The Uncanny, pp Amir H. Ameri, The Architecture of the Illusive Distance, Ashgate Publications, Burlington, 2015 The Architecture of the Illusive Distance, pp Edwin Heathcote, Cinema Builders, Wiley-Academy, London, 2001

5 Reference Reading André Bazin, What is cinema? vol. I, Berkeley, University of California Press 1967 André Bazin, What is cinema? vol. II, Berkeley, University of California Press 1971 Catherine Belsey, Culture and the real: theorizing cultural criticism, New York, Routledge, Q. David Bowers, Nickelodeon Theatres And Their Music, Vestal, NY, Vestal Press, Ben Brewster, Theatre to cinema : stage pictorialism and the early feature film, New York, Oxford University Press, Linda Chase, Hollywood on main street : the movie house paintings of Davis Cone, Woodstock, Overlook Press, Ian Christie, The last machine : early cinema and the birth of the modern world, London, BBC Educational Developments, Gilles Deleuze, Cinema I; Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, 1986 Gilles Deleuze, Cinema II; Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, Andrew Dudley, The image in dispute : art and cinema in the age of photography, Austin, University of Texas Press, Giovanna Franci, A journey through American art deco: architecture, design, and cinema in the twenties and thirties, Seattle : University of Washington Press, James Forsher, The community of cinema: how cinema and spectacle transformed the American downtown, Westport, CT, Praeger, Douglas Gomery, Shared Pleasures: A History of Movie Presentation in the United States. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, Richard W. Haines, The moviegoing experience, , Jefferson, NC, McFarland & Company, Ben M. Hall, The best remaining seats; the story of the golden age of the movie palace, New York, C. N. Potter, 1961 Colin Harding, In the kingdom of shadows : a companion to early Cinema, Madison, NJ, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Ina Rae Hark, ed., Exhibition, the film reader, New York: Routledge, 2002 Jan-Christopher Horak, Making images move : photographers and avantgarde cinema, Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, Mark Jancovich, The place of the audience: cultural geographies of film consumption, London, British Film Institute, Michael D. Kinerk, Popcorn palaces: the Art Deco movie theatre paintings of Davis Cone, New York, Harry N. Abrams, John Margolies, Ticket to paradise: American movie theaters and how we had fun, Boston: Little, Brown, 1991 Judith Mayne, Cinema and spectatorship, New York, Routledge, 1993.

6 Christian Metz, The imaginary signifier: psychoanalysis and the cinema, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982 Rachel O Moore, Savage theory : cinema as modern magic, Durham: Duke University Press, David Naylor, Great American movie theaters, Washington, D.C., Preservation Press, David Parkinson, History of film, New York, Thames and Hudson, 1996 François Penz and Maureen Thomas, ed., Cinema & architecture, London, British Film Institute, Ave Pildas, Movie palaces, New York, Crown Publishers, Michael Putnam, Silent screens: the decline and transformation of the American movie theater, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, Philip Rosen, ed., Narrative, apparatus, ideology: a film theory reader, New York, Columbia University Press, Dennis Sharp, The picture palace, and other buildings for the movies (Excursions into architecture), New York, H. Evelyn, 1969 Terry Smith, Impossible presence : surface and screen in the photogenic era, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2001 Maggie Valentine, The Show Starts on the Sidewalk: An Architectural History of the Movie Theatre, Starring S. Charles Lee, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1994 Joseph M. Valerio, Movie palaces: renaissance and reuse, New York, Academy for Educational Development, Gregory Waller, ed., Moviegoing in America: A Sourcebook in the History of Film Exhibition New York, Blackwell Publishing Professional, 2001 Barbara Wilinsky, Sure seaters: the emergence of art house cinema, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, Peter Wollen, Signs and meaning in the cinema, London, BFI Publishing, Special journal issues devoted to movie theaters, exhibition, and moviegoing: Brickbuilder 23 (February 1914) on movie theaters and terra cotta architecture Architectural Forum 42 (June 1925) on the design of contemporary theaters Architectural Record 104 (November 1948) on new theater architecture Velvet Light Trap 25(1990)011 exhibition/ conditions of reception Film History 6 (1994) on the history of film exhibition Iris 1 7 (1994) on movie spectators and audiences

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