Fieldwork: København at the Danish Academy of Fine Arts

"Architecture is always the ultimate achievement of intellectual and artistic evolution, the materialization of an economic stage. Architecture is the final point in the achievement of any artistic endeavor because the creation of architecture implies the construction of an environment and the establishment of a way of life." - Asgur JORN, Architecture for Life, Potlatch #15, 1954

From 2 April - 9 April 2013 we will run a workshop for students at the Danish Academy of Fine Art in Copenhagen. Entitled 'Fieldwork: København', this workshop will encourage architects to think like ethnographers, poets and critics. We will take as our starting point a triadic relationship between three texts including:

• Life in Denmark (1972), directed by Jørgen Leth. 
• The Five Obstructions (2003), directed by Lars Von Trier. 
• Fin de Copehhagen (1957) by Asgur Jorn and Guy Debord. 

With these in mind, we will students a number of tasks that, together, will document Copenhagen as a system of interconnected spatial relationships: a series of relationships documented through subjective and critical  acts of site-study / mapping / ethnography.

Inflagrante Delicto

We will be running a workshop entitled 'Inflagrante Delicto: A Story of Architecture, Sex and Death' for Masters students at the Aarhus School of Architecture from 10th September-14th September. The workshop, including 280 students, will explore the relationship between architecture & narrative, both theoretically and practically; reflect this relationship directly – even literally – through architectural construction; document this relationship through filmic strategies.

The workshop will conclude with a film screening and banquet on Friday, 14th September.

It was and it was not ...

"Fang, let us say, has a secret: a stranger calls at his door; Fang resolves to kill him.  Naturally, there are several outcomes: Fang can kill the intruder, the intruder can kill Fang, they both can escape, they both can die, and so forth.  In the work of Ts’ui Pên, all possible outcomes occur; each one is the point of departure for other forkings.” – Jorge Luis Borges, ‘The Garden of Forking Paths’

We will be running a workshop from 9th April - 17th April with students  studying architecture at the Danish Academy of Fine Art in Copenhagen. Entitled 'It was and it was not ...', the workshop's aim is to explore the generative possibilities inherent in fiction for the material practice of architecture. We take as our starting point the understanding that fiction is an immaterial imaginary overlay rendered through a representational framework, and we are particularly interested in how architecture students might explore and exploit these generative possibilities through the technique of composite drawing.

We will conclude the workshop with a final review of the students' work.