INSTITUTIONS

GRADUATE STUDIO 
ARCH 552  -  FALL 2023

PROFESSORS

STUDIO THEME

“Movie Theaters”

From the early nickelodeons to the opulent and transformative experience of movie palaces, from inexpensive drive-in theaters to tech cinerama domes, from dine-in theaters to luxury boutique cinemas... No matter how much the movie-going experience changes, one condition remains intact: it’s the one building that becomes completely invisible once you’re in it. You spend two hours in a darkened space, leaving your routine behind, while your head is full of the spaces you’ve inhabited on screen rather than in the physical realm.

Today, while the coronavirus pandemic has shuttered cinemas across the world, and in a digital era of avidly visual consumption, what can we still learn from the invention and emergence of the movie theater as an institution? How does its representational role mediate the fabulous kitsch, the extravagance and the ephemeral illusion? How can the movie theater experience be reimagined once again? And, what new possibilities might shape for itself in the immediate future?

The Institutions studio works to explore and communicate the opportunities for design for reality to be transcendent and visionary. Students are introduced to the basic concepts of life safety and accessibility, and how to treat these as integral considerations in design work that is inclusive and asks productive questions about social justice, equity, and who and what is represented in our institutions. The studio prioritizes the relationship between civic structures and the city, as well as capacity-building in the core competencies of building design, (including organization, accessibility, and diagrammatic structural integration).