In this module we think of architecture as personification of spaces and times. We will think and do and do and think to get a rich understanding of what role the public can play in architecture and what position architecture can take in public life. The students will exercise in a special kind of literacy – learning to sign as an architect.
The module sees architecture as an inventive and critical practice. In order to realize a project, architects need not only convince with their proposals and designs a great number of decision makers. But they must also be able to grasp for themselves, with clarity and articulacy, the ideas and ambitions they pursue. In other words, they must be able to index and code what they are after, in order to communicate it well. The ability to comprehend of oneself as a participant of discourses with a public audience does not come easily, and wants to be exercised. This module presents and trains several skills and strategies for achieving such literacy. It addresses ambitious architects and everyone who wants to learn how to write, talk, research, curate, and critically asses their architectural practice in public: be it in concept work, theory discourse, architecture research, journalism, film, communication and public relation, curation.
This module centers around the relation between architecture and communication via code. As an architect you will want to be able to sign – intellectually – your work with your own name. For this, we need not only be well familiar with forms and formats, with skills and techniques of communication, we also need to "master" them with a certain sophistication. The courses of this module will provide exercises for this.
** The module is offered in the Winter Semester of each year. Please note that not all the elective courses can offered every time. **
Core Courses
259.278 VO Show
The lecture course VO SHOW (2h/2ECTS) circulates around forms and formas of public communication in architecture (magazines, manifestoes, blogs, websites, radio, tv, film). We will get familiar with theories in semiotics, with forms of discourse analysis and interaction analysis, and we will gain insights into the local media scene via guest lectures.
259.509 VO Talk
The lecture course VO TALK (2h/2ECTS) deals with philosophical approaches to relevant topics in cultural discourse and architecture theory, and thereby considers also extra-disciplinary fields like mathematics, economy, ecology, politics, ethics, art, padagogy, the engineering sciences or the juridical sciences.
259.501 VU Substitute
In the VU SUBSTITUTE (3h/3ECTS), students acquire basic familiarity and practice with rhetorics and poetics. They learn how to articulate ideas in language and image.
259.502 VU Act
In the VU ACT (3h/3ECTS), all the different angles treated in the courses of the module are to play together: here it is all about translating what has been learnt into a personal articulation that feeds into one thematic frame that is provided by the lecturer.
Elective Courses
259.513 VO Tame
The VO TAME (2h/2ECTS) focuses on Robotics and Architecture from a cultural studies point of view
259.338 VO Screen
The VO SCREEN (2h/2ECTS) attends to film theory.
259.510 VU Cut
The VU CUT (3h/3ECTS) deals with montage as theory and practice.
259.503 VU Code
The VU CODE (3h/3ECTS) provides a rich spectrum of the imaginary worlds around coding, it concerns itself with programming and mathematical thinking for architects.
259.500 VO Report
The VO REPORT (2h/2ECTS) offers students to actively participate with a written report on the lectures at the international Sophistication conferences at TU Vienna, organized by ATTP.
