Romantic spaces

Theory of Architecture, Reflection | SoSe 2024
Module no. 25405 | Course no. 623109
TU 13:45 -15:15 | LG 2D 109
Start: 18 April 2024
Victoria Loyall, Prof. Dr. Albert Kirchengast

The seminar "Romantic Spaces" explores the Romantic era through its spatial forms of expression: Students will analyse selected paintings by Caspar David Friedrich and discuss the "pictorial space" and the "space of pictures" in order to get to the bottom of the spatial-architectural vocabulary of Romanticism using examples.
The intensive work with texts from the Romantic period and about this movement forms the basis for understanding the history of ideas.
The research approach of the seminar pursues the thesis that the phenomenological approach to the perception of architectural space receives a decisive impulse from Romanticism, from its combination of sense and spirit. Conversely, architecture dedicated to the sensual and the spiritual could be understood as "romantic architecture". So do romantic buildings exist? Do they still exist today? And, if so, what feelings and moods should be created or experienced in the interplay between idea, people and building?
The aim of the seminar is to gain a fundamental understanding of the Romantic movement in order to recognise its progressive impact on modernism and contemporary architecture.

Theory reading

Theory of Architecture, Reading | SoSe 2024
Module no. 25405 | Course no. 623110
TU 10:00 -11:00 a.m. | LG 2D 109
Start: 16 April 2024
Prof. Dr. Albert Kirchengast

The reading seminar supplements the seminar "Romantic Spaces" with a weekly reading appointment. With Lukas Rietzschel's "Mit der Faust in die Welt schlagen" (Berlin 2008), we will not only be reading the highly acclaimed debut of a young German-language author, but will also be travelling fictionally to the rural areas of the former German East, to a Saxon village.
Here we do not encounter a romantic idyll - existential questions arise from personal and societal, social and economic conflicts in a world on the edge of the world. Or are we rather reading into the centre of a crumbling present? "Lukas Rietzschel is a chronicler of decay, he describes what it is like when home disappears, how capital incapacitates people and how lives dissolve into nothing," reads the blurb. What can we learn from such a dark word painting, what positive conclusions can we draw from it?
In addition to reading the book together, we will discuss the topics addressed in the book in order to relate them to our own life situation and the potential of architectural design. We try to link the world of literature with our own, and the architectural spaces it contains with our projects. The examination of a contemporary novel is also intended to awaken our sensitivity for linguistic expression.

Farewell and Absence, Building Thoughts II

Integration module | SoSe 2024
Module no. 13630 | Course no. 623113
MI 09:30 -13:00 | Atelier Mies
Start: 17 April 2024
Jonathan Metzner, Prof. Dr. Albert Kirchengast

Perceiving, speaking, designing - these essential aspects of architecture have always gone hand in hand with empathising with our environment, reflecting on collected impressions and the human will to express ourselves. Our culturally specific rituals and everyday actions are not only performed in the built environment, but also symbolised by it.
The phenomena of "receiving" and "farewell" play a decisive role in human life situations and characterise our culture. The seminar "Farewell and Absence" focuses on dying, farewell and remembrance. Which atmospheric qualities and which spatial elements can lend expression to a contemporary funeral culture? How is the absence of meaningful things symbolised in different cultures?
The seminar accompanies the design studio "Design and Economic Building" as an integration module. The guiding building concept for the design of a columbarium is honed by means of discussion rounds and individual modelling exercises. The triad of model-model-image-text (analytical/descriptive) illustrates the essential-ideal nature of an individual design and frees it from the limitations of real practice. Textual impulses from architectural history and theory, from cultural studies and the humanities accompany the seminar.

Understanding Architecture

Understanding and Communicating Architecture | SoSe 2024
Module no. 14146 | Course no. 623114
TU 17:30 - 19:00 | LG 2D 109
Start: 18 April 2024
Prof. Dr. Albert Kirchengast

Anyone who wants to understand the Architecture of a time, especially the present, must first understand the framework conditions that limit it. Critically illuminating one's own present requires an understanding of the continuity of central cultural and intellectual-historical themes of an industrialised mass society: work, capital, spectacle, consumerism, etc. are just some of the terms used to describe a critical view of our society in which Architecture is created and on which it has a transformative effect. They also name the critical foundations of a society in transition, which we want to get hold of, at a distance from fashionable buzzwords.
By reading and discussing selected texts from philosophy, architecture and social theory together, we aim to gain an understanding of the underlying context of the history of ideas of our time. In doing so, we will engage in a research-based "architectural-ethnographic" examination of specific urban spaces in Cottbus: three completely different places from the Gründerzeit, Modernism and the GDR will be explored, analysed, documented and presented in terms of their phenomenal qualities using different methods.
By combining an abstract-theoretical, broad perspective with a technical exploration of our everyday lives, the aim is to focus on creative spaces of possibility and the daily, small and large-scale potential for change in our environment. What role can Architecture as an art of building play in this, given that it is so central to our education in shaping people? Where do we find it in people's everyday lives, away from professional ideas? How do we see ourselves as architects of the present?

Communicating Architecture

Understanding and communicating Architecture | SoSe 2024
Module no. 14146 | Course no. 623115
FR 09:30 - 11:00 | LG 2D 109
Start: 19 April 2024
Prof. Dr. Eduard Führ

Every day, people mediate in Architecture; they design, they rebuild, they live in, they translate their understanding of a pleasant life into it. And vice versa: Architecture also communicates itself to people every day. They gain valuable experience and knowledge of buildings and the environment, of the functional-structural and artistic intrinsic value of Architecture, Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture. They learn to act in their built environment, to organise social relationships and to acquire insights and knowledge about the power of Architecture on their lives and thinking.
Architectural mediation is therefore part of the training to become an architect. It has a close relationship to visual mediation, to Architectural Theory, plays a role in the acceptance of listed buildings in Architectural Conservation, in urban planning procedures but also with regard to design and in analysing the everyday functional and aesthetic power of Architecture, Urban Design and Landscape Architecture. History of Art and Architecture must also be taught methodically so that they can play a role in architectural design and in people's everyday lives. Architecture education lays the foundations for criticism - criticism as judgement but also as differentiation of architecture, must be reflected upon as a method itself, but also historically and critically. Ultimately, architectural mediation also contributes to recognising the achievements of professionals working in architecture, urban and landscape planning.
The seminar will also analyse the practice of architectural mediation by architectural offices, architectural chambers, building administrations and institutions of building culture, specialist or newsstand magazines, feature pages of daily newspapers, magazines, TV, construction games, etc.