Architecture Design Year 3 Studio 2019-20 Semester 2, HKU
Studio Title Masque/Mediatheque
Image Credits Lee Hae Jin (01-03), Leung Janice (04-06), Wan King Kit (07-08), Wan Wai Lok (09-10)

Course Description

Under the unprecedented influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, this design studio was conducted entirely online and split into two parts: Masque project (4 week duration) and Mediatheque project (8 week duration).

In project 1, each student is assigned with one of the 69 subjects/objects in John Hejduk’s The Lancaster/Hanover Masque project. Through the process of close reading, students are expected to see the unseen, and decipher the enigma of Hejduk’s masques, then reinterpret and reconstruct the investigated masques into a collection of 60 second stop-motion films.

The exercise of close reading is then shifted from the site-less masques in project 1 to a highly specific site of project 2 – Matthäikirchplatz, Berlin, a site heavily charged with the history of Berlin, and the history of Kulturforum in particular. Each student is required to design a 3000m2 mediatheque building on site. Being surrounded by iconic buildings such as the New National Gallery, the Philharmonie and the recent winning museum proposal by Herzog & de Meuron, the mediatheque proposed on site is expected to form a unique dialogue with the context. Meanwhile students are challenged to question and explore the role of mediatheque in relation to the past, present and future of Berlin, and of the world at large.