052-0834-21L  PhD Teaching: Ways of Seeing - Working With the Visual Materials of Architecture

SemesterSpring Semester 2021
LecturersL. Stalder, M. Critchley, S. Hefti, M. Lähteenmäki, G. Verhaeghe
Periodicityevery semester recurring course
Language of instructionEnglish


AbstractWhat do images do? How can you understand drawings, photographs and other visual material in architectural practice? This course will give you a critical toolkit for understanding, analysing and questioning the visual material of architecture.
Objective• Provide a toolbox for critical, cultural and visual analysis
• Study key texts in visual analysis in order to improve the critical reading of visual material.
• Understand the act of showing and displaying visual material.
• Achieve a better understanding of one’s own use and presentation of the visual material of architecture.
Content“It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world” – John Berger in "Ways of Seeing". Taking its title and que from John Berger's groundbreaking tv-series on art made in 1972, the course seeks to engage with visual materials and extend Berger's ambition towards architecture. We will discuss methods and questions from the fields of seeing and the visual. In addition to providing various methods of visual analysis, this seminar will also critically examine the powerful practices of seeing, interpreting, assembling and translating the visual material of architecture. We will look at how meanings change between production and reception, and how images circulate and mediate between media, between individual and collective views, between times, places and cultures.

This seminar will help you reflect upon and revisit the use of visual material within your own architectural work.

"Ways of Seeing" available (and recommended) on youtube: Link
Lecture notesLink
LiteratureLink
Prerequisites / NoticeLink