PALAU DE LA MUSICA

Site: Ciutat Vella

Mercat de Santa Caterina and Palau de la Musica
Architect: Enric Miralles (market)
Lluis Domenech i Montaner (original palau)
Oscar Tusquets and Carles Díaz (extension and renovation)

Assignment: Dialogue: Old and New
Investigate the language and situation of the existing architecture and analyse the response of the new extensions to the existing buildings. Please explore this subject at a multiple scales.

FIELD SKETCHING IN ANDALUSIA

Site: Madrid and Andalusia

Assignment:

Independent study of the Islamic architecture of Medieval Spain. Sketching is required at the following sites; Plaza Mayor, Madrid; The Mezquita, Cordoba; The Alhambra and Generalife, Granada; Real Alcazar and Cathedral, Seville.

Sketches in order from top to bottom: Travis Akiwowo, Lauren Blodgett, Nick Valentino

ROMAN CITY

Site: The Roman City Section

Assignment: Spatial Sequences
Sketch the spatial sequence between the Plaza Sant Neri and the Plaza Rei. Explore and existing duality that links and transforms the spatial perceptions along your route. Sketches in order from top to bottom: Irene Jorden

THE DERIVE

Site: The city of Barcelona

Exercise:

You will explore the city by means of the situationist dérive,(1) a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiences of repulsion and attraction.

“In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.”

You will position your self as the flanuer.(2) With the assistance of a partner you will begin your dérive at an unidentified location. You will record your drift determined by your emotional response to urban situations. Please remember, your perceived ambiances are a product of all your senses not just visual.

Assignment:

Following the exercise, you will create a psychogeographical mapping of your perceived ambiances. Your medium is pencil and collage on paper (dimensions and template to be specified). You will produce one map per group of two on white watercolor paper. It is suggested to begin your graphic representation with a 2-dimensioanl map that then is manipulated to express the varied ambiances that were encountered.

1. dérive: literally “drift” or “drifting.” Like détournement, this term has usually been anglicized as both a noun and a verb. In philosophy, a Dérive is a French concept meaning an aimless walk, that follows the whim of the moment. It is sometimes translated as a drift.
2. flanuer: comes from the French verb flâner, which means "to stroll". A flâneur is thus a person who walks the city in order to experience it. Because of the term's usage and theorization by Charles Baudelaire and numerous thinkers in economic, cultural, literary and historical fields, the idea of the flâneur has accumulated significant meaning as a referent for understanding urban phenomena and modernity

Boards in order from top to bottom: (board one) Travis Akiwowo and Kevin McNamara, (board two) Jessica Euler, Michael Doster, Josh Bereznay