A research and teaching project exploring how filmmaking, grounded in an eye-level perspective, can serve as a critical tool for spatial analysis and architectural pedagogy.
Cinematic Cartography is a method that employs filmmaking as a tool for spatial analysis, enabling architecture students to construct and interpret place-based narratives beyond conventional forms of representation. It is developed within the Taking Place BA program at the Royal Danish Academy — a program rooted in the belief that architecture is not merely placed on a site, but teased out of it.
Rather than approaching the world from a top-down perspective, we start from the smallest moment and zoom out. We believe that you can learn more about a larger context by beginning with a small story and understanding the larger picture from there — establishing a more humane approach to architecture.
Our filmic explorations engage with diverse urban conditions, each raising critical questions about space, narrative, and community:
An Arctic mining town undergoing complete relocation. Tensions between industrial progress and community displacement, captured through the eye-level perspective of its inhabitants.
A post-Soviet city transformed into an emerging tech hub. The friction between communist past and capitalist future, traced through the daily routes of its residents.
Colonial histories embedded within the familiar urban fabric. Re-examining the city's relationship to its past, and asking what narratives remain visible — and which are erased.
A city in economic crisis becoming a global tourist center. The clash between cultural heritage and commodification, told through the ironic lens of bedbugs in Airbnb apartments.
"The camera does not resolve tension — it lingers within it."