ARC300H0 S/ ARC2016H S
Instructor: Peter Sealy
Meeting Section: L0101
Summer 2025
Travel Dates: TBD (Three weeks in August)

Overview

Berlin's reputation as a global metropolis is inextricably linked with its history as a site for film production. Through films, Berlin has projected a series of urban images to global audiences, creating its own “analogous city” (to borrow Aldo Rossi's phrase), no less real than the actual material artefacts to which they are linked. Across the decades of the 20th century and now in the 21st, the architectural history, urban forms, and spatial conflicts latent within Germany's capital have been laid bare in the massive number of films set and/or produced in Berlin. While offering valuable representations, these films also serve as generators of an urbanity which is then re-inscribed into the city by new architectural and urban projects. 

Building upon the previous editions of this course offered in summer 2023 and 2024, this iteration of the Daniels Faculty's Studies Abroad will again explore Berlin and its filmic representations. This will be done through an intensive schedule of walking tours and building visits, paired with a series of nightly film screenings. To further their understanding of film as a medium for exploring and making architecture, and in the spirit of Berlin as a centre for filmmaking, students’ main assignment in this course will be the production of short 8 and 16 mm analogue films under the tutelage of a group of local filmmakers led by Christian Flemm. Other activities will explore analogue media, such as film photography and printmaking. A day-long collective drawing workshop led by architects plattenbaustudio will allow students to explore Berlin’s Admiralbrücke neighbourhood. Throughout, the group will engage in frequent discussions with local architects, authors, filmmakers, photographers, and scholars. 

In the summer months prior to travelling to Berlin, the group will meet for six hour-long seminars on Zoom. Accommodation will be made for students' individual schedules (for ex., work commitments, conflicts with other courses, and issues with time zones). 

ARC300H0S L0101 / ARC2016H0S L0101 is a half (0.5) credit course. 

Application 

This course is available to undergraduate Architectural Studies and Visual Studies students in all streams who have completed 1.0 credit of ARC courses at the 200-level before summer 2025. This includes fourth-year students graduating in June 2025. It is also open to MARC, MLA, and MUD students. 

Students wishing to apply should watch Wim Wenders's 1987 film Wings of Desire, which is available on the Kanopy Streaming Platform through University of Toronto Libraries. 

Students should then prepare three postcards, with an image on one side and text on the other. The first postcard should introduce yourself; in the second, please share your thoughts on the film; and in the third, explain why you'd like to go to Berlin. 

Postcards should be submitted online HERE (Please note the form is limited to one submission. Further editing and amendments are NOT allowed after the form has been submitted.) Additionally, printed copies should be left at the Daniels Reception (ORSS). These are the only application requirements for this course. 

The deadline to apply is Wednesday, February 26, 2025 at 11.59 pm EST. 

Photo credit: Kelly Vu