Teaching Architecture Through Film: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Abstract

Architecture is central to understanding the built environment. The most common threshold for people to appreciate architecture is through sensual experience. In college, non-architecture students typically are exposed to architecture in a historical survey course as a series of styles. Survey courses are derived from art history as it catalogues styles. An alternative to the architectural style survey is an interdisciplinary course developed by architecture and cinema faculty that uses the students’ own architectural experiences. Through the medium of film, architecture is understood through six experiential elements: Space/Scale; Style/Ornament; Light/Shadow; Color; Sound; Landscape. The course is a weekly seminar showing 14 films in which architecture plays a key role. Each week a film is screened, with readings supporting class discussions. Students use a ‘Notes Worksheet’ to focus on the architectural experience in the film, then complete a ‘Critique Assignment’ that emphasizes architecture’s experiential aspects. Students build connections between what they learn about architecture through viewing, discussing, and critiquing each film, and their own personal experiences and memories of architecture. Student evaluations of the course indicate that this interdisciplinary course helps non-architecture students to formulate a greater awareness of architecture and appreciation for it, as well as a deeper understanding of the art of film.