Master of Architecture II Fall 2012

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FILM AND THE CITY
INCURSIONS INTO URBAN FORM AND DISCOURSE: TIME
 
Professor: Diana Agrest
Instructor: Daniel Meridor
 

Each student selected a film in which they considered the city to be a protagonist and extracted a fragment of three to five minutes from the film where this was expressed. Through diagrams and text, the specific fragment in relation to Urban / Architectural and Filmic parameters was described. The films analyzed were Rear Window, Run Lola Run, Still Life, Breathless, The Third Man, The French Connection and Taxi Driver. The duration of this exercise was one week.

This studio focuses on the process of generating Urban Form through the exploration of the process by which multiple, varied forces intersect in generating it. Two cities, Los Angeles, USA and Mumbai, India – two expanding cities generating new conditions – were given as the site of this enquiry. A series of Productive Readings were produced on each selected city, through concepts related to an Urbanistic, Technological or Theoretical / Historical perspective. These readings served as the articulation between a creative subject and the various texts of the city – writings, drawings and photographs – revealing and manifesting, through the drawings and models produced, "another" city with many hidden specificities. The question of Time, in all its conceptions and implications, was the theme of this studio. Emphasis was placed on the design process. Drawing as a tool for critical thinking was at the heart of this process.

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  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.