Teaching

Cinematic Cartography is first and foremost a pedagogical method. Our teaching program introduces architecture students to filmmaking as a way of engaging with the complexities of place — not through technical mastery, but through artistic judgment and subjective, situated observation.

Pedagogical Approach

In our teaching, we aim to turn architectural observation inside out. Instead of approaching the world from a top-down perspective or from the outside in, we start from the smallest moment and zoom out. This is not because we don't believe in maps as a productive tool, but because we believe this approach establishes a more humane relationship with architecture.

What we attempt is to position the architect as a narrator — one who expresses poetically what situation we are in. Instead of words, we use light, composition, sound, atmosphere, montage, and movement.

Three core principles:
1. Phenomenological approach — filmmaking highlights the sensorial qualities of architecture
2. Empirical understanding — ethnographic observation creates more humane architecture
3. Narrative architecture — the camera on the ground creates engaged architects who immerse themselves in surroundings rather than looking from afar

Filmic References in Teaching

We introduce students to filmmakers who have shaped our understanding of how cinema captures place:

Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire) — the angelic perspective versus the grounded, embodied experience of place
Michelangelo Antonioni (Red Desert) — landscape as protagonist, psychology of environment
Yasujirō Ozu (Good Morning) — composition, the static camera, everyday ritual
Alfred Hitchcock (Rear Window) — the voyeuristic gaze, POV as narrative device
Agnès Varda (The Gleaners and I) — the filmmaker as subject, speaking nearby
Reyner Banham (Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles) — the car as mobile studio, windscreen as frame
Francis Ford Coppola (The Conversation) — surveillance, attention, and technology
Harun Farocki — narrative as critical spatial inquiry

Workshop: 1-Day Filmmaking Intensive

Designed for guest workshops (e.g., at Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio with Carla Juacaba's class), this intensive introduces students to three filmic methods:

Montage — A composition of 5–7 shots exploring a space. Using match-cuts through architectural elements as spatial anchors.
Tracking Image — Moving the camera through, around, or along an element. Placing the camera at eye-level and dragging it with a cloth.
Steady Cam — A still composition given meaning by moving elements (wind, shadow, light), captured in real time.

Students produce a 1-minute film of their architectural model, capturing the ephemeral qualities of the space — movement from inside to outside, environmental presence, or atmospheric conditions. Sound design (ambient audio) and editing (stabilization, basic color grading) conclude the day.

Film Screenings

The semester culminates in a public screening at a cinema, where student films are presented alongside critical discussions of the methods and themes explored. These screenings serve as both assessment and celebration — marking the transition from filmic analysis to architectural design.