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Mathanraj Ratinam

Adjunct Assistant Professor
mr2660@columbia.edu
+1 212 854 3414









Mathan Ratinam is the director of Lmno Studio and a PhD research candidate in the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT University, Australia. At Columbia University he also directs the Moving Image Lab at Columbia (MILC), a project based research lab exploring the role of film and animation in architecture and design. He currently teaches in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, and maintains an ongoing Visiting Professorship with the TU Innsbruck, Austria. Trained as an architect, he is now a practicing filmmaker and academic who publishes and teaches in the areas of digital representation for architecture, animation and visual effects for film and television.

 

06.30.09
6:30PM - 8:30PM
Room 113, Avery Hall

VISUAL STUDIES LECTURE SERIES: MATHAN RATINAM (Director of LMNO Studio & Moving Image Lab at Columbia (MILC)) - 'A Broken Engagement: A Review of the Architectural Fly-Through'

02.08.10
6:30PM - 8:30PM
Avery Hall, Wood Auditorium
Advanced Architectural Research: Part 2.0 - GSAPP's Lab Directors will discuss new directions in architectural research.
Visionary Methods of Practice

This course aims to question the relationship between architecture and its representation and more specifically the role ofanimation in architecture.

The Carceri (Prisons) series of etchings by Piranesi marked a significant turning point in the 18th century of visually representing architectural spaces. Breaking from the rigid mathematical rules of linear perspective that had dominated architectural representation since the Renaissance, Piranesi sought to focus on the evocative qualities of images rather than the geometric order that was privileged by the conventions of perspective. The theatrical nature of his etchings have since been noticed by many outside the discipline of architecture and were of great influence to film makers such as Eisenstien and more recently Spielberg. Another such visionaire, Hugh Ferris, who too created cinematic renderings of architecture also proactively distorted the linearity of perspective, writing in an article on the role of architectural renderers ‘… it would appear that he is not so much permitted as actually required to slight incidental facts of his viewpoint in favor of the essential facts of the subject which he is viewing.’ (Ferris 1926).


Visionary Methods of Practice

This course aims to question the relationship between architecture and its representation and more specifically the role of animation in architecture.