14.02 - 18.02.14 - Foundation Diploma Visit Berlin

An educational trip was in order this year with the Foundation Diploma students and where best to take them than a place that holds countless interventions of culture, historical outbursts, brutal architecture sweeping through the landscape, creating an entire environment in 50 shades of concrete. Yes, Berlin was to be our destination and was the basis for their upcoming project entitled "Capture". The trip comprised of a heavy itinerary visiting some of the most iconic spots the City had to offer. As a degree student myself, I visited Berlin back in 2007 and worked on a public landscape project in the area of Alexander platz, I found it exciting to have the opportunity to revisit some of the galleries and museums that perhaps as a student I didn't fully integrate and reflect upon. 

The trip started with a visit to the Berlinische Galerie just outside the Potsdamer Platz area. The main exhibition was a retrospective of Franz Ackermann, and his over sized mixed media work that scaled the walls of the 3 story void. The rest of the gallery wasn't neglected either with a high volume of different artworks on show with a multitude of subjects discussed. 




We then moved towards the infamous Jewish Museum, a building known for its architectural form designed by architect Daniel Libeskind that splices through the terrain, with shards and split openings posing questions and feelings of depression before entering the complex. As a former architect student I have visited many spaces and buildings that are impressive in form, status and are forever remembered, but none come to close to the emotion evoked when walking around this complex, the way the space moves you closer than ever into the devastation that commenced is supernatural. It was impressive to say the least at how mature the students took on board the information and how they started to realize the in depth nature of those past events. 



We also booked ourselves into a guided tour of the Bauhaus archives, a place that many of the students as well as lecturers had waited to visit with the close connections of this design movement and school system that was the underlining model for the Foundation Diploma course that we teach on now. The tour took us through the entire collection studying the school itself and those working in and around the fabric of architecture, arts and crafts with iconic products and furniture that still holds a key within contemporary furniture design to date, and then back into the school system looking at the way in that experimentation was the ultimate key to uncovering and learning. Personally I felt this was a huge benefit to the students giving them clarification into what their subject is about, why it is that we teach in a exploratory and experimental manor and how their subject has evolved. 


The last day was a send off with no smiles as we took the train out to the west to the very last station to visit the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. An ultimate shift in emotion unlike anything that you could personally describe or talk to someone about. even reflecting upon the visit and looking at the photographs doesn't come close to the atmosphere you face when you walk through those gates. For me I feel the trip was of high success with students gaining wider knowledge of culture, creative context and the experience of visiting some of these iconic places that inform you on so many levels. I am very much looking forward to seeing how this trip has now informed the students on a creative level and what they will take forward as a primary source to work on throughout the duration of their "capture project"





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