Jannes Schmidt is an architect, filmmaker, and researcher based in Berlin. He completed his bachelor’s degree in architecture at Universität Kassel and his master’s degree in Integrated Design, with a focus on film and photography, at Hochschule für Künste Bremen. Using film and photography, he explores the interfaces between architecture and society, questions existing structures, and opens up new perspectives on urban space. His practice also includes podcasting, lectures, and workshops.
His work has been shown in Germany and internationally, including at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt, the Wilhelm Wagenfeld Haus, and the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (AFFR).
At GBB he develops the “Atlas of Vernacular Techniques”, a filmic research project on displaced vernacular building practices. Borrowing the aesthetics of industrial motion studies by Marey and Gilbreth, the Atlas documents building techniques with a standardised camera setup and classifies them in a growing visual archive. It also asks which criteria we use to judge construction: motion studies made efficiency and speed the measure, a logic that still shapes the building industry. In view of climate and resource limits, the project proposes other criteria such as durability, reusability, and social fabric. The first chapter, “Quercus suber”, is dedicated to the harvesting of cork oak in Sardinia and will be developed into a multichannel video installation.
His work has been shown in Germany and internationally, including at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt, the Wilhelm Wagenfeld Haus, and the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (AFFR).
At GBB he develops the “Atlas of Vernacular Techniques”, a filmic research project on displaced vernacular building practices. Borrowing the aesthetics of industrial motion studies by Marey and Gilbreth, the Atlas documents building techniques with a standardised camera setup and classifies them in a growing visual archive. It also asks which criteria we use to judge construction: motion studies made efficiency and speed the measure, a logic that still shapes the building industry. In view of climate and resource limits, the project proposes other criteria such as durability, reusability, and social fabric. The first chapter, “Quercus suber”, is dedicated to the harvesting of cork oak in Sardinia and will be developed into a multichannel video installation.
