Overall working methods

Partner Institutions sustain frequent contact within the framework of META -university. The IP 'Visible and Invisible Context of Architecture' will benefit and intensify existing cooperation. Details of the programme will be specified and possibly corrected at the preparatory meeting with the representatives of all partner institutions, scheduled in April 2006. All practical agreements will be solved through e-mail correspondence between the project coordinator and the respective contact persons responsible for the project at the partner universities.

The IP will base on methodology of teaching the art-related courses, developed through years at the Faculty of Architecture, WUT. It is expected that the partner staff members will add also their own methods, tasks and techniques to be implemented during the programme. It is assumed, that the participating students represent at least basic knowledge and skills in artistic techniques and, therefore, the workshop is designed rather to master them in the art-media presentations.

Instructors will be attracting students’ attention to following aspects of the work: principles of picture composition and its arrangement, proportions of the subject, visual depth (perspective applied, foreground, middle-ground and background), tones, texture, light, shade and shadow, colour. Students will be asked to prepare the various types of works such as rough synthetic composition sketches, value sketches, elaborated object/ theme studies. The following artistic techniques will be applied: pencil and pen sketches, use of variety of markers, coloured pencils, transparent and opaque watercolours, pastel, gouache, collage, mix media.

Since the town of Kazimierz Dolny was selected as topic of the workshop, students can get more information about the location from members of the municipal administration, local priests, artists or architects. Contacts with them exist already, since the place is traditionally a ‘shrine’ of all kinds of art-oriented society.

Work plan (for details see PREPARATORY, IMPLEMENTATION, COMPLETION Stages)

The Intensive Programme is conceived as a 12 days workshop. It starts from introductory lectures on the town history, the workshop tasks and themes, presentation of art-media to be used (6 hours). Students will be taken then for site-seeing to be familiarised with the town and potential work themes and topics (3 hours). The activity shifts then to specific and detailed case studies (see p.3.3), which will be carried out through the most of the workshop days in form of thoroughly supervised on site work (outdoor and indoor), work in studio, critics and evaluations. It is planned that students will work minimum 8 hours daily. The results are to be presented in two the so-called ‘reviews’ to internal and external professionals, both, staff from other institutions as well as local professionals with expertise on the topic (6 hours). A final gathering and debate aims at deducting practical and theoretical insights about the art-related courses within curricula of architecture schools (3 hours).

Subjects to be taught

The workshop, apart from introductory lectures and presentations, reviews and critics, is planned as on site students’ work and will cover the following topics: landscape (the sky and clouds, terrain and its configuration, water, trees, greenery, flowers, light, shade and shadow, colour); a human (an individual - figure, portrait, a group of people, street accessories and furniture, vehicles); townscape (urban complex in birds-eye perspective, urban interiors – squares, streets, mews in one- or two-point perspective); architecture – characteristic buildings, architectural interiors; details and signs; place and its atmosphere – ‘genius loci’.