Representation, Reproduction, Retransmission

The course is a review of key events that changed the ways and means through which architects communicate their work. Its aim is to encourage a critical approach to contemporary communication media and the pervasive ‘culture of the image’.

In architecture, representation is a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. Whenever we make an image, we are trying to visualize something, more in the sense of projecting an idea than of creating a self-sufficient work of art. The main goal of images, whether they depict real space or not, is to preserve ideas and make them more evident. Therefore, representation is an integral part of architectural creation.

Images, of course, have also leaked out and ceased to be exclusively a tool within the architect’s workshop. Magazines and digital social networks rely heavily, if not exclusively, on images. 20th-century periodicals helped shape architectural culture, fostering interaction and exchange. Without their existence, the architectural developments of the previous century would have been quite different. Will the same be true of digital media in the future?

The course is based on a series of lectures and seminars and includes a final assignment focused on the critical analysis of an image.