[EFF17S14] Session 14: The Architectural Essay Film, with Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL
Cite as:
Temple, Michael and Barrington, Matthew
(2023):
[EFF17S14] Session 14: The Architectural Essay Film, with Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.
Birkbeck College, University of London.
Description
31 March 2017, 11:00, Birkbeck Cinema
This special collaboration with the Bartlett School of Architecture was in two parts. An introductory talk by Penelope Haralambidou (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL), defining the “architectural essay film” by looking at historical examples but also examining its emerging role in architectural design, was followed by a screening of a selection of films made by Bartlett students using film as part of their architectural practice and research. The event concluded with a discussion with some of the authors/filmmakers/designers.
Part 1: The Architectural Essay Film, Penelope Haralambidou
In her opening talk, Penelope Haralambidou discussed essay films that specifically focus on urban or architectural design subject matter, what she calls the “architectural essay film”. Questioning and probing, but often also deeply infatuated by, the cities and buildings they portray, these films are wide-ranging historically and geographically, for instance: Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera and Alain Resnais’s Toute la mémoire du monde; Patrick Keiller’s London and Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself; Wim Wenders’s If Buildings Could Talk and Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine’s Barbicania, to name but a few. Although some of the directors above have either trained as architects (Keiller and Bêka) or have a long-term interest in buildings and architects (Wenders and Andersen), there has been no attempt to link these essay films through their common attention to architecture.
Recent advancements in digital technology have brought the two disciplines of film and architecture closer than ever before. As a result, drawn architectural form – the domain of the architect – and the camera, together with lighting, scripting and editing – the domain of the film director – have merged into compatible software platforms. By adding the dimension of time, architects can explore the storytelling potential of their designs and start flirting with the world of filmmaking. Used as both a creative and critical design tool, film can generate an affective relationship with architecture, a form of empathy with the building.
Haralambidou presented work by students in the MArch Unit 24 at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, which has as a main focus the relationship between film and architecture. The short films use filmmaking as a design tool and practice led research in architecture. Created in an academic environment, these architectural film projects share a speculative, self-reflexive, and boundary-breaking approach, which comfortably places them in the essayist film tradition.
Film examples:
Fictional Constructs, Kairo Baden-Powell, 2014
Wates House, Daniel Cotton, 2014
The Long Now Foundation, Nico Czyz, 2016
Agitprop, Liam Davis, 2014
The Embassy of the Displaced, Stefanos Levidis, 2016
An Anatomical Embassy, TJ Brook Lin, 2016
Weaving the Ineffable, Angeliki Vasileiou, 2015
Part 2: The Making of an Architectural Essay Film: Student Films
In this second part of the event, five student filmmakers spoke about specific aspects of the making of their most recent work, considering how these processes of making are essayistic. The architectural essay film can arguably investigate the director’s attitude reflected on architecture, as Penelope Haralambidou argues when claiming how this genre has the potential of “revealing a link between our perception of the built environment and the structure of intellectual processes” (Harlambidou, 2016). This session will consider the process of making, or being in the making, as such a site where subjectivity, thinking and spatiality could be investigated or questioned. What aspects of the making of an architectural essay film could prompt such discussion?
Films:
Blue, Sander Hölsgens, UK, 2017, digital, 7 minutes, English
Calcata, Anna Ulrikke Andersen, UK, 2017, digital, 15 minutes, English
Cycle 1: The Imprint and the Hand, Phuong-Trâm Nguyen, UK, 2016, digital, 5 minutes, English
Austerlitz in London, Henrietta Williams, UK, 2016, digital, 8 minutes, English
m i s – m e e t: habitual gestures for the slightly unfamiliar, Bihter Almaç, UK, 2016, digital, 6 minutes, English
Responding to their work was filmmaker Grant Gee (Patience: After Sebald [2012], Innocence of Memories [2015]).
This special collaboration with the Bartlett School of Architecture was in two parts. An introductory talk by Penelope Haralambidou (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL), defining the “architectural essay film” by looking at historical examples but also examining its emerging role in architectural design, was followed by a screening of a selection of films made by Bartlett students using film as part of their architectural practice and research. The event concluded with a discussion with some of the authors/filmmakers/designers.
Part 1: The Architectural Essay Film, Penelope Haralambidou
In her opening talk, Penelope Haralambidou discussed essay films that specifically focus on urban or architectural design subject matter, what she calls the “architectural essay film”. Questioning and probing, but often also deeply infatuated by, the cities and buildings they portray, these films are wide-ranging historically and geographically, for instance: Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera and Alain Resnais’s Toute la mémoire du monde; Patrick Keiller’s London and Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself; Wim Wenders’s If Buildings Could Talk and Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine’s Barbicania, to name but a few. Although some of the directors above have either trained as architects (Keiller and Bêka) or have a long-term interest in buildings and architects (Wenders and Andersen), there has been no attempt to link these essay films through their common attention to architecture.
Recent advancements in digital technology have brought the two disciplines of film and architecture closer than ever before. As a result, drawn architectural form – the domain of the architect – and the camera, together with lighting, scripting and editing – the domain of the film director – have merged into compatible software platforms. By adding the dimension of time, architects can explore the storytelling potential of their designs and start flirting with the world of filmmaking. Used as both a creative and critical design tool, film can generate an affective relationship with architecture, a form of empathy with the building.
Haralambidou presented work by students in the MArch Unit 24 at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, which has as a main focus the relationship between film and architecture. The short films use filmmaking as a design tool and practice led research in architecture. Created in an academic environment, these architectural film projects share a speculative, self-reflexive, and boundary-breaking approach, which comfortably places them in the essayist film tradition.
Film examples:
Fictional Constructs, Kairo Baden-Powell, 2014
Wates House, Daniel Cotton, 2014
The Long Now Foundation, Nico Czyz, 2016
Agitprop, Liam Davis, 2014
The Embassy of the Displaced, Stefanos Levidis, 2016
An Anatomical Embassy, TJ Brook Lin, 2016
Weaving the Ineffable, Angeliki Vasileiou, 2015
Part 2: The Making of an Architectural Essay Film: Student Films
In this second part of the event, five student filmmakers spoke about specific aspects of the making of their most recent work, considering how these processes of making are essayistic. The architectural essay film can arguably investigate the director’s attitude reflected on architecture, as Penelope Haralambidou argues when claiming how this genre has the potential of “revealing a link between our perception of the built environment and the structure of intellectual processes” (Harlambidou, 2016). This session will consider the process of making, or being in the making, as such a site where subjectivity, thinking and spatiality could be investigated or questioned. What aspects of the making of an architectural essay film could prompt such discussion?
Films:
Blue, Sander Hölsgens, UK, 2017, digital, 7 minutes, English
Calcata, Anna Ulrikke Andersen, UK, 2017, digital, 15 minutes, English
Cycle 1: The Imprint and the Hand, Phuong-Trâm Nguyen, UK, 2016, digital, 5 minutes, English
Austerlitz in London, Henrietta Williams, UK, 2016, digital, 8 minutes, English
m i s – m e e t: habitual gestures for the slightly unfamiliar, Bihter Almaç, UK, 2016, digital, 6 minutes, English
Responding to their work was filmmaker Grant Gee (Patience: After Sebald [2012], Innocence of Memories [2015]).
Previews
1 - EFF17S14 Discussion (EFF17S14 The Architectural Essay Film.MP3)
Collection Method
The Essay Film Festival ran between 2015 and 2023, and presented a global range of contemporary and restored essayistic works. The events are now archived here for research purposes.
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Metadata
| Dataset Title: | [EFF17S14] Session 14: The Architectural Essay Film, with Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL |
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| Creators: | Temple, Michael and Barrington, Matthew |
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| Dataset Contributors: |
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| Subjects: | |||||||||||||
| Data collection method: | The Essay Film Festival ran between 2015 and 2023, and presented a global range of contemporary and restored essayistic works. The events are now archived here for research purposes. |
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| Collection period: |
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| Statement on legal, ethical, and access issues: | All film stills were provided by participating artists. |
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| Depositing User: | Emma Yapp | ||||||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 19 Aug 2026 09:56 | ||||||||||||
| Last Modified: | 19 Aug 2026 09:56 | ||||||||||||
| Publisher: | Birkbeck College, University of London |
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