Throughout history the cinema has been associated with a building typology that provided a threshold between fiction and reality. The long, eventful procession from the ticket counter to the theater allowed viewers to unconsciously separate themselves from reality. Due to the contingency between the original and the copy, the cinema provided a container to house fiction so that it was not to threaten what we understand as reality.

 

Our goal in designing the Screening Room for the College of Arts and Media was to perpetuate this typology by blurring the line that separates fiction from our reality beginning the moment the viewer engages the site. The space moves across the site and through the cinema in such a way that the boundary of the site also becomes blurred and unclear. The screening room is located at the end of the procession, providing one last look down 14th Street before you shift axis into the screening room.