Florida International University

Architecture and the Performing Arts

ARC 3995 & 5995

Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30-10:45,

Professor Gray Read, readg@fiu.edu (Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 11-1)

Description of Course: This seminar will consider what architects might learn from the performing arts, particularly how stagecraft can inform design for social spaces in the city. We will look at traditions of set and theatre design in relationship to architecture and urbanism. Using theatrical space as a guide, we will observe the performance of existing urban spaces as sets for social events. The course will draw on faculty in the School of Theatre, Dance and Speech for discussions of how space affects action.

Course Purpose: This seminar develops research and analytical skills for developing architectural program and design. It draws on historical research, direct observation and experimentation to explore human behavior in relation to architectural design. It also examines design traditions that have addressed human behavior by engaging the other arts. The course is designed for students of architecture, landscape architecture and interiors, and draws on faculty from the School of Theatre, Dance and Speech.

Goals: Students will develop hypotheses based on historical research then test them by direct observation or experimentation. They will also develop writing and graphic documentation skills.

Structure of Course: Seminar discussion. Students will present readings and research and participate in experimental group projects. Required readings must be completed for each class, the quality of discussion depends on participation.

Graduate students are required to read additional texts listed as “grad” in schedule

Text: Readings are downloadable on course website

In-Class Presentations: Each student will present their research on a topic and will lead the class in discussion.

Quizzes: Some classes will center on discussion questions. Students will discuss, then write their answers to be handed in.

Projects : Each student will develop a question based on the topics of the course and a set of experimental or observational techniques to answer the question. They will do the project and do a Powerpoint presentation on the results that will be handed in as a term project. Assignments over the term will lead students through the process of research, experimentation, analysis, and presentation. Intermediate assignments include: a statement of topic, research proposal, bibliography and an outline.

Absences: University policy states if you have three absences, you fail the course

Tips:

Keep up. Do the reading, Do the reading, Do the reading

Take notes. Keep a dedicated notebook for this course. Take notes on both the reading and discussion. Sketches help.

Come to lectures; You are required to attend all departmental lectures.

Grading Scheme: Class Participation/Quizzes 40

Presentations 20

Term Project 40

Total 100 points

Schedule

January 6: All the World’s a Stage

January 8: Film “Social Life of Small Urban Spaces”

Reading: Richard Sennett, excerpt from The Conscience of the Eye: The design and social life of cities, Faber and Faber (1991)

Grad: Tschumi, “Spaces and Events”

Assignment: Semester Project

January 13: Field Trip Discussion: Architect-Observer

Due: Sketches and photos from Field Trip

January 15: In-class exercise

Reading: William Whyte, “The Idea of the Sensory Street” Lotus 118 (2003)

Richard Sennett “Fourteenth Street”

Grad: Tschumi, “Sequences”

January 20: Spatial Dance: In-class exercise

Reading: Mikail Bakhtin excerpt from Rabelais and his World, (1949)

Grad: David Wiles, excerpt from “Public Space”

January 22: Tragedy, Comedy, and Farce: the Court, the Bedroom and the Forest

Due: Statement of Topic and Bibliography due: 2 pages

January 27: The Carnival and Public Space: The world upside down

Reading: Bernard Tschumi, “Events, The Turning Point”

Grad: “Tschumi, “Violence of Architecture”

January 29: In-Class Exercise

February 3: Edward Gordon Craig: Modern Theatre: Experimental Theatres of Art and Action: the streets of Paris

Reading: Gray Read, “The Theatre of Public Space” JAE (May, 2005)

Grad: Craig, On the art of Theatre

Due Research Proposal (3 pages) and Bibliography (1 page)

February 5: In-Class Exercise

February 10: Domestic Drama and the Doll’s House: Adolf Loos

Reading: excerpt from: Beatrix Colomina, “the Split Wall and Domestic Voyeurism” In Sexuality and Space (Princeton Architectural Press, 1996). Read pages 73-99

Grad: Read entire article

February 12: In-Class Exercise

February 17: Student Presentations

February 19: Student Presentations

February 24: Shakespearian Architecture

February 26: Discussion and In-class exercise

Due: Outline 6 pages

March 3: Film: Alfred Hitchcock, “Vertigo”

March 5: Class Cancelled: email sketched from film

March 10: Theatre as an Experimental Field for Architecture:

Reading: Walter Gropius, excerpt from The Theatre of the Bauhaus (Johns Hopkins Press, 1961)

Grad: Walter Schlemmer “Man: Teaching Notes from the Bauhaus”

March 12: Discussion

March 17: Spring Break, Enjoy

March 19: Spring Break, Enjoy

March 24: Happenings and the Appropriation of Space

Reading: Craig Saper, “Fluxus as a Laboratory” in The Fluxus Reader (1998)

Grad; “Critical Mass: happenings, Fluxus, performance”

March 26: Discussion

Due: Research paper

March 31: Contemporary Performance: Diller and Scofidio

Reading: “Interactivity and real time-envy: an interview with (Elizabeth) Diller + (Ricardo) Scofidio.”

Grad; “Flexh: Architectural Probes”

April 2: Discussion

April 7: The Event: Tschumi, Koolhaas,

Reading: Bernard Tschumi, “Context, Content, Concept”

April 9: Review

April 14: Jury Week, No Class

April 15

April 21: Absolute final deadline for revisions to paper

April 29: Grades Due