Abstract:

Our Media Studies Department at the Delft Faculty of Architecture (the Netherlands) deals, by means of teaching and research, with the different available media all along the entire design process.
The curriculum is developed to train the talents of each student regarding research through visualization and our didactical approach can be characterized according the motto ‘research by means of creation’.
Students learn, experiment and further develop their design visualisation and presentation skills by means of techniques such as freehand drawing, computer modelling and rendering, photography, film, digital imaging and multimedia and internet based presentations.
Except for this exploration, our department also promotes and supports the exploration and combination of all the available media.

One of the techniques students at our department could choose to present their ideas, already for more than 30 years, is (video) film. By means of the developments in technology and digital film editing, linear storytelling became very popular. All at once, advanced presentations could be produced making use of diverse film styles.
During the different courses offered by Media Studies, many students showed often a special interest towards fiction and film.
They were particularly interested in ‘filmic architecture’, defined in this case not as a fictive world but as an existing, actual world within the context of a film.

Ever since its beginnings, film has been strongly related to architecture. Many terms and expressions commonly used in fiction film have already been adopted by architects and by the architectural theory.
These terms, even when they sometimes mean something different, contributed significantly to further widen the thinking about architecture, especially during the second half of the XXth century.
In addition, there is a growing amount of architects and designers who make use of film, both on a professional basis and as a research and presentation medium.

cinem'A -Cumulative Interactive Name Encyclopaedia on Movies and Architecture- is a continuing project based on part of the curriculum offered by our department. During every issue of this elective, seven different films are viewed and analysed by the students.
Each of these films has contributed to further develop the ‘state of the art’ of film. They have inspired other films and have also often introduced new, different ways to look at people and places and their mutual relationship.
Accordingly, special attention is drawn to the story, the editing and the architecture and as well to either films inspired by an architectural style or, the other way around, architecture influenced by film.
At the same time, the students are also asked to write an essay.
As starting point of this essay they choose, from a list we present to them, a term related to film and architecture. In the successive issues of this course a database is being formed, revealing the significance of each of these terms.

One of the main objectives of this elective is therefore, the implementation of an application: a digital, web based dictionary of architecture containing and describing terms related to film and architecture.
The ‘editing’ of different materials, in this case film analysis, literature and the student’s own personal experience and interpretation constitute an artistic and intellectual but also personal exploration, indispensable to any creative, design process.

Keywords:

architecture and film, higher and further education, new trends and experiences.