Content

In 1977, Italian director Dario Argento released Suspiria, a film destined to become a classic of the horror genre. Against the backdrop of the story of a young dancer confronted with an enchanted dance academy in postwar Berlin, Dario Argento transforms the Tanz Theatre Academy and its interior architecture from a mere setting into a genuine symbolic device capable of reinforcing and directing the narrative, poised between beauty and menace, order and chaos. The choice of 1970s Berlin allowed Dario Argento and production designer Giuseppe Bassan to draw upon a rich and eclectic architectural panorama.

On the set of Suspiria, references to German-inspired Art Deco and Art Nouveau are intensified by experimental geometries and a palette of vivid, dazzling colors reminiscent of the Technicolor employed by Disney, transforming their cheerful and lighthearted character into an amplifier of the darker disturbances of human nature.

The architecture and production design of Suspiria do not merely provide a backdrop for the unfolding story; they become genuine actors interacting with the plot and the characters. Through the symbolic use of line, geometric form, and color, as well as through the design of space and lighting, Dario Argento creates an environment that becomes a protagonist of the film in its own right, helping to construct a parallel reality in which the ordinary becomes extraordinary and the everyday turns threatening, in the wake of what Sigmund Freud termed “the uncanny.”

This fusion of architecture, decoration, and narrative makes Suspiria a unique work, in which every visual element contributes to the construction of a world that is at once fascinating and disturbing.

Within the framework of the Semaine Buissonnière, the sets and interiors of Suspiria become the object of an investigation into the relationship between environment and language, image and symbol, and, more generally, the dynamic dialogue between architecture and cinema. The workshop proposes to explore these themes through the analysis and reconstruction of selected spatial fragments from the film. With contributions from specialists in film history, representation, and architectural iconology, and under the supervision of the ENSASE teaching team, the workshop will be structured around:

1. a full screening of the film on Monday, February 2, at 4:30 p.m., at the Cinémathèque, 20–24 rue Jo-Gouttebarge, Saint-Étienne;
2. the analysis of eight architectural scenes from the film using tools derived from the iconological methods of art history;
3. the reconstruction of the image through the tools specific to the architectural discipline, namely perspective reconstruction and the production of plans and elevations;
4. the production of eight simulacrum-models in colored paper at a scale of 1:20;
5. the filming of the models using techniques specific to cinematographic recording.

The workshop is intended for thirty students, including four or five master’s-level students who may participate as assistants, thereby contributing to the construction of a collaborative and participatory educational project.

With the support of the reprographics workshop, the model-making workshop, and the IT and audiovisual services, which will provide lighting and cameras, the students will have access to the tools required for the production of drawings, the construction of the models, and the fabrication of their storage boxes. These objects may thus become useful instruments of cultural mediation within the framework of future collaborations with the Grand Lux cinema.

Teaching Team

Evelyne Chalaye – MCF TPCAU, ENSASE
Boris Hamzeian – MCFA HCA, ENSASE
Pierre-Albert Perrillat – Professor, TPCAU, ENSASE
Filippo Fanciotti – MCFA RA, LAPIS Laboratory, EPFL

External links

Semaine Buissonnière