Le Corbusier - Film and Television for Architecture
Thursday, 12 June, ab 14h, Aula, Städelschule.
Alle Veranstaltungen der Architekturklasse finden in englischer Sprache statt.
Due to scheduling conflicts, the originally planned conference on ‘Le Corbusier, Art and Architecture’ is deferred to autumn. In place of the planned event, the Architecture Class hosts an event on Le Corbusier & film and television as part of an extended program on the architect’s engagement with the arts and media.
At the time when the French architect, Le Corbusier, engaged with the arts in conjunction with producing his many influential works, he also embraced the new media of film and, shortly thereafter, television. According to Beatriz Colomina, renowned professor at Princeton University, ‘modern architecture only becomes modern with its engagement with the media.’ Architecture thus becomes constructed as an immaterial series of images in the public imagination, and Le Corbusier actively engaged with the new media to convey his architectural visions as much as to promote himself in the public realm.
On June 12, the Städelschule Architecture Class hosts an event that explores this aspect in the work and public role of Le Corbusier. The program for the day is based on the work of Colomina and the research of Belgian architect historian, Véronique Boone.
The inquiry into the subject matter holds continued relevance at a time when various forms of media have taken on increased importance in conveying architecture within the field as well as to an international, public audience at large. With the advent of film and television as mass communication, Le Corbusier embraced this new lens to reach his audiences. In consequence, the building, as the ultimate artifact of architecture, was displaced through reproduction and a specific narrative. The latter invited the architect to convey himself in a specific manner and to build an image as public figure within the context of the period’s cultural and socio-economic flux.
The program includes lectures by Beatriz Colomina, also a guest professor in architectural theory in the Städelschule, and the Belgian architectural historian Véronique Boone. A series of films, film- and television clips will be screened. The talks and the viewings will be followed by an open discussion that includes the participation of the American theorist and writer, Sanford Kwinter as well as the Städelschule’s dean, Daniel Birnbaum, Ben van Berkel and Johan Bettum.
Beatriz Colomina
is an architectural theorist and associate professor in the School of Architecture at Princeton University. She has written extensively on questions of architecture and the modern institutions of representation, particularly the printed media, photography, advertising, film and TV. Among her books are Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media (1994), which was awarded the 1995 International Book Award by the American Institute of Architects; Sexuality and Space (editor, 1992), awarded the 1993 AIA International Book Award; and Architecture Production (editor, 1988). Her most recent books are Doble exposición: Arquitectura a través del arte (Double Exposure: Architecture through Art) (Madrid: Akal, 2006), and Domesticity at War (Barcelona: ACTAR and MIT Press, 2007). She has been on the editorial boards of Assemblage, Daidalos, and Grey Room. Colomina is the Founding Director of the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University. She has lectured at various institutions and events throughout the world and is the recipient of several prestigious grants and fellowships, including the Chicago Institute for Architecture, SOM Foundation, Graham Foundation, Fondation Le Corbusier, and the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts in Washington.
Veronique Boone
studied architecture at the University of Ghent. She holds a Master Histoire de l'architecture from the Sorbonne in Paris. She is a freelance writer for art and architecture periodicals, such as A10, A+, De Architect, and Rekto/Verso. Her research is focused on the representation of architecture in film and photography. Her book, Le Corbusier et le film, la promotion d'une oeuvre, will be issued by the French publisher Picard this year. She has also published various articles on the topic in periodicals such as Anuario de Estudios LeCorbuserianos (Massilia, Barcelona) and in the catalogue to accompany the exhibition on the photographer Lucien Hervé in the CIVA in Brussels (Belgium). In cooperation with CinemaZed and Stad & Architectuur in Louvain, she organised a cycle of films and lectures (winter 2007-2008) that present different views of the relation between film and architecture.