Building Documentaries

Seminar

Christoph Schaub: “Using examples from Il Girasole - una casa vicino a Verona and The Journeys of Santiago Calatrava, I will describe several questions that were important for me during the production of these films. Who is narrating architecture here and for which purpose? Is it a fictional subject, a documentary filmmaker or the author’s personality? How can I achieve a concentrated narration so that the building develops into an emotional space and evokes - in the best case - a fictional feeling? What are the advantages of portraying architecture on film in comparison with the experience of walking through a building?”

Markus Heidingsfelder: “I will speak about the production process for my film, Rem Koolhaas - A Kind of Architect: a conversation about a construction, for which the original plans were very different. Furthermore, in my presentation I address architecture as a kinetic art, an art that relies upon the movements of the participant (in the sense that Victor Vasarely understood it) and about the question: human interest - what for?”

The seminar will conclude with a panel discussion featuring all speakers, moderated by Hans Maarten van den Brink (director Mediafonds).

Doris Agotai
Doris Agotai (Dr. sc. ETH, dipl. Arch. ETH) is a lecturer at the ETH Zurich (Dept. of Architecture) and the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK (MAS Scenography) and a senior researcher at Applied University Northwestern Switzerland FHNW (Institute of 4D Technologies). Her research focuses on spatial perception and virtual environments. Recent publications: Playtime - Starring Architecture in Peripheral vision and collective body and Architekturen in Zelluloid. Der filmische Blick auf den Raum http://www.agotai.ch/

Oeke Hoogendijk
Oeke Hoogendijk (1961) started her career as a theatre director. Since 1997 she has been directing documentaries for television like Een gelukkige tijd (A happy time) and The Holocaust Experience. In her recent documentary film Het Nieuwe Rijksmuseum (The New Rijksmuseum), she follows the renovation of the old Rijksmuseum building in Amsterdam. Hoogendijk is now working on The New Rijksmuseum part two.

Christoph Schaub
Christoph Schaub (Zurich, 1958) is one of the leading documentary filmmakers in the field of architecture films. Films such as Bird’s nest – Herzog and De Meuron in China (2008) are highly acclaimed by critics. He was a member of Videoladen Zurich and contributed to founding Dschoint Ventschr AG. As a freelance lecturer he worked at the Higher Institute of Design and at F+F, Zurich and acted as an artistic director of the ONOMA exhibition EXPO 2002.

Markus Heidingsfelder
Markus Heidingsfelder (Cologne, 1963) works as a filmmaker and writer in Berlin while studying for his dissertation in systems theory at the LMU in Munich. He writes for Die Welt, SZ Magazine, taz and Rolling Stone Magazine and has worked as a producer for VIVA and MTV. In 2004 he founded his own TV production company, together with Min Tesch.