Guest Lecturer Dr. Mark Morris, Cornell University
This seminar examines the relationship between architecture and scale tracing the history of the model and its function within the discipline.
As digital applications replace handcrafted architectural models, questions emerge about the specificity and status of such objects. A series of famous twentieth-century models will be introduced opening up links with precedents ranging from religious artefacts to cinematic special effects props. Fundamentally, the seminar aims to question the mystique of studio and the creative process. While the course does provide new information, it also seeks to revisit what students already know from their own academic experiences.
Modernisms particular favoritism of the model paralleled its ascendancy in architecture education and its recurrent feature in popular culture, yet the critical study of this has been largely ignored. Why did the Ecole des Beaux-Arts ban the model? How did the dissolution of the Bauhaus help bring it back? How much did Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright owe to Kindergarten lessons? Toys will be considered as catalysts for design projects. Narrative constructs based on the miniature, including films, should broaden conventional notions of size and signification. Questions regarding digital fabrication will organize future debate.
-------> Reading Material
compact schedule
| Friday June 13 | 15:00h | Sizing up the Problem |
| Monday June 16 | 09:15h | Sketchy Claims |
| Tuesday June 17 | 09:15h | Problems of Representation |
| Wednesday June 18 | 09:15h | Popular Culture: Toys, Food + Film |
| Thursday June 19 | 09:15h | Fabrication |
All Class session in rm. 102, Kubus A
Participants need to register at:
Theorie und Geschichte der modernen Architektur, Hauptgebäude, Raum B004
Mark Morris teaches architectural design and theory at Cornell. Winner of an AIA Medal for Excellence in the Study of Architecture, he trained at the Ohio State University and took his doctorate at the London Consortium supported by a Royal Institute of British Architects grant. He previously taught at the Bartlett, Architectural Association and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. As a Research Fellow, he helped organize a summer school program at Tate Modern examining aspects of urban imagery and infrastructure. Marks essays have featured in several art and architecture periodicals including Frieze, Contemporary, Cabinet, AD and Domus. He is author of Models: Architecture and the Miniature (Wiley, 2006), Automatic Architecture: Designs from the Fourth Dimension (Globally Boundless, 2006), and hosts the iTunes podcast series, Architecture on Air. His research focuses on architectural models, scale and questions of representation. Other research interests include edible architecture, narrative, music as heuristic device and cycloramas. He is Post-Graduate Coordinator of M.Arch. II, M.A. and Ph.D. Programs at Cornell Universitys College of Architecture, Art and Planning.