ArtCenter Berlin Term | FA/SP/SU25 Faculty-Led
Spring 2025 Application Deadline is October 9 (Week 5) at 1pm PST
Summer 2025 Application Deadline is February 19 (Week 5) at 1pm PST
ABOUT AN ARTCENTER BERLIN TERM
An immersive concept-driven learning environment in one of Europe’s most provocative cities.
ArtCenter Berlin Terms fully immerse students in the rich culture and history of a city known for creative re-invention.
ArtCenter Berlin is a ‘test lab’ for investigation, research and discovery as students leverage their ArtCenter skillset to navigate the melting pot of people, politics and businesses woven together as a beautifully chaotic blend of 3.6 million people, the capital of Germany. Artists and creatives from all over Europe converge here to play, show – and most importantly, share their work. They gather in intimate living rooms to raw industrial spaces to exchange ideas. It’s the perfect backdrop to “be part of Berlin” for an ArtCenter term.
Students will enroll in two to five distinct courses (dependent on studio) that immerse them in Berlin.
Classes in history and language provide context, a course in contemporary issues identifies current social and political challenges within Germany and the EU. All H&S courses complement the critical studio component (6-9 units) where students work with Berlin faculty to create a project that is a “response” to an aspect of the city that resonates with them. Faculty provide sources and context while students pursue the abundant (multi-faceted) resources in Berlin.
While some classes will be “vor Ort” investigating the city, ArtCenter Berlin Term will balance them with in-studio lectures, discussions and critique. Students will complete 12 weeks in Berlin including some longer weekends for extended research and investigation.
UPCOMING STUDIO TOPICS
Each ArtCenter Berlin Term includes a unique studio topic and a combination of H&S classes for a total of 15 units of ArtCenter credit. Some studios are open to all students, while others are for specific majors. Students will apply to a studio and be required to enroll in the corresponding H&S courses. Explore upcoming topics below and then click on the course description for full details.
Fall 2024 Studio
Bühne Berlin-Storytelling: Berlin On Stage (9 Studio Credits + 6 H&S)
Open to all majors but especially suited for Creative Direction, Entertainment Design, Film, Graphic Design, Illustration, Interaction, Photography, Product, and Spatial Experience
Berlin is world famous for its eclectic and experimental theater, music, dance and opera. From boundary pushing avant-garde theater and opera productions to technologically brilliant musical performances: All of Berlin is “on stage.” It also has, perhaps, more stories to tell than any other city in the world. Grand stories, personal stories, political stories, musical stories, tragic stories, romantic stories.
Co-requirements: German Language and Berlin at a Second Glance.
Spring 2025 Studio
Experimenting in the German Way
(9 Studio Credits + 6 H&S)
Open to all majors
Taking a cue from the Bauhaus, the Ulm school, from famous German(and Swiss) typography to groundbreaking films, avant photography and industrial technology –new ideas and ways of seeing emerged in Germany, especially in the 20th C. that changed the way we communicated, changed the way we lived.
For Spring 2025, students will develop their own individual projects, in their chosen discipline, inspired by this German sensibility. Collectively, they will come together with their projects to create a hypothetical exhibition about German design, inspired by the past while clearly addressing the future.
Co-requirements: German Language and Berlin at a Second Glance.
Application Deadline: Wednesday, October 9 (Week 5) at 1pm
Summer 2025 Studio
Infrastruktur Ich Liebe Dich (Infrastructure, I Love You)
(6 Studio Credits + 9 H&S)
Open to all majors
“Berlin is a city condemned forever to becoming and never to being.” This quote from Karl Scheffler is as relevant today as it was in 1910. Berlin’s complicated history is a study in contrasts and contradictions. But it is still very much a city in flux, both dynamic and evolving.
Using investigative/research skills initially, students delve firsthand into some aspect of the city that resonates with them, empowered by their discipline (and when appropriate, guided by discipline-specific advisors) to create a response (das project!) that is both authentic and insightful.
Co-requirements: German Language, Berlin at a Second Glance, and Contemporary Berlin.
Application Deadline: Wednesday, February 19 (Week 5) at 1pm
ARTCENTER BERLIN STUDIO COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
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FALL 2024 ARTCENTER BERLIN STUDIO
Bühne Berlin
Storytelling: Berlin On StageOpen to all majors but especially suited for Creative Direction, Entertainment Design, Film, Graphic Design, Illustration, Interaction, Photography, Product, and Spatial Experience
Co-Reqs for this studio include the following H&S classes: German Language and The Berlin Way: Mapping the Creative Industries
Berlin is world famous for its eclectic and experimental theater, music, dance and opera. From boundary pushing avant-garde theater and opera productions to technologically brilliant musical performances: All of Berlin is “on stage.” It also has, perhaps, more stories to tell than any other city in the world. Grand stories, personal stories, political stories, musical stories, tragic stories, romantic stories.
Our project will give some of these stories a stage for interpretation. Your stage may be designed as an interactive engagement of media and projections, or a family of illustrations that create richly layered scenes – or ingeniously designed and detailed furniture and props. Every medium, every discipline is brought to life. Observe, explore, investigate and document the people, places and history of Berlin. Create your own Berlin fable or be inspired by a moment in Berlin’s storied past.“All the world’s a stage” as our neighbor, Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It.
Course Learning OutcomesStudents in the Berlin Special Projects will:
• Broaden research and investigative skills using Berlin, Germany and the EU as a ‘test-lab’.
• Utilize and improve time management and self-study skills.
• Achieve goals and deepen relationships through cross cultural explorations / external community connections.
• Deepen own personal voice while expanding interpersonal skills. -
SPRING 2025 ARTCENTER BERLIN STUDIO
Experimenting in the German WayOpen to all majors
Co-Reqs for this studio include the following H&S classes: German Language and Berlin at a Second Glance, for a total of 15 credits.
Taking a cue from the Bauhaus, the Ulm school, from famous German (and Swiss) typography to groundbreaking films, avant photography and industrial technology –new ideas and ways of seeing emerged in Germany, especially in the 20th C. that changed the way we communicated, changed the way we lived.
Companies like AEG, Braun, Bayer, Leica and Volkswagen embraced this philosophy, their work still is reflected in contemporary design thinking today.
For Spring 2025, students will develop their own individual projects, in their chosen discipline, inspired by this German sensibility. Collectively, they will come together with their projects to create a hypothetical exhibition about German design, inspired by the past while clearly addressing the future.
All disciplines are of importance. The exhibit will juxtapose complementary projects; new ideas in furniture making, products, graphics, animated pieces, projections, film or photography – holistically making up the German Way.
Course Learning Outcomes
Students in the Berlin Special Projects will:
• Broaden research and investigative skills using Berlin, Germany and the EU as a ‘test-lab’.
• Utilize and improve time management and self-study skills.
• Achieve goals and deepen relationships through cross cultural explorations / external community connections.
• Deepen own personal voice while expanding interpersonal skills. -
SUMMER 2025 ARTCENTER BERLIN STUDIO
Infrastruktur, Ich Liebe Dich (Infrastructure, I Love You)Open to all majors but especially suited for Fine Art, Interaction, Media Design Practices, Photography, Product, Spatial Experience, and Transportation Design—DESIGNMATTERS MINOR ELIGIBLE
Co-Reqs for this studio include the following H&S classes: German Language, Berlin at a Second Glance, and Contemporary Questions for a total of 15 credits.
This is a project about infrastructure(s): what it is, where it is, what it does, and how we live with it. Throughout the studio, we’ll work with an expanded and speculative notion of infrastructure. We’re consider wires and pipes and roads and power plants; but we’ll also look to social and cultural infrastructures that organize communities which co-exist and overlap each other, like in the case of the Tempelhofer Feld and its multiplicity of programmed spaces; and new, technological infrastructures such as artificial intelligence and decentralized networks which we are only just beginning to make sense of; and also the not-so-obvious infrastructures dispersed throughout the city, such as guerilla gardening spaces in forgotten cemeteries.
We’re in Berlin for several reasons: the entire city has its own infrastructural horror story. Cut in half post-war, streets blocked and subway lines severed, it was stitched back together again 30 years later. Berlin leads us to contemplate the infrastructural components of the metropolis that we often take for granted. Looking beyond the stereotypical typologies of German infrastructure, this research-led studio is in search of locally-rooted infrastructures of communities, artist and activist collectives, and of course, the radical experiments that come out of them.
The studio is split into two, distinct phases:
Phase 1 (5 weeks) comprises a series of field trips and warm-up assignments centered around experiencing Berlin and its edges through an infrastructure lens. We will start by looking at the physical urban entrails in front of us, from the everyday to epic scale. Some infrastructural site visits include visiting automation plants, specific neighborhood walking tours, and car plants.
In Phase 2 (5 weeks) we will synthesize our experiential research by posing our questions. What do we bring to the foreground in our work, and what do we leave behind? Given our experiences through the city, how might we engender alternative encounters with infrastructure? What might (new) infrastructure look like? What are the new narratives of urban experience afforded by this infrastructure?
Our work will culminate in a window exhibition at the ArtCenter Berlin studio. Aside from this deliverable, there is no predetermined form or medium of the outputs. We welcome all drawings, models, animations, films, interactive pieces that explore our infrastructure prompts. Our only requirement is that participants are enthusiastic about research-led approaches and exploratory modes of making in their art and/or design practices.
Course Learning Outcomes
Students in the Berlin Special Projects will:
• Broaden research and investigative skills using Berlin, Germany and the EU as a ‘test-lab’.
• Utilize and improve time management and self-study skills.
• Achieve goals and deepen relationships through cross cultural explorations / external community connections.
• Deepen own personal voice while expanding interpersonal skills.
ARTCENTER BERLIN H&S COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
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Offered Fall, Spring, + Summer Terms. Co-Req for all Full-Term Studios.
One of the most effective ways to integrate into a culture is through language. The cadence and inflection found in language reveal an additional layer of complexity and nuance, providing important insights into a people and their daily life. The goal of the German Language Lessons is to get ArtCenter Berlin students closer to German culture through local written and spoken language.ArtCenter Berlin German Language Lessons will explore how culture is reflected in language and will enable students to both become familiar with the German language and deal with everyday situations during their stay in Berlin. Students will develop basic communicative competences in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This rudimentary German language knowledge will enable students to better live, adapt, research, and learn among Berliners.
Course Learning Outcomes
Students in the ArtCenter Berlin German language class will:
• Get an understanding of the connection between language and culture to help connect students to the environment around them and offset anxiety they may face in daily life in Berlin.
• Utilize new communication skills to help empower students in practical and abstract ways in a non-intimidating environment.
• Be able to speak, read and understand German on a basic level while adapting to daily life as a Berliner for the term.
• Acquire a higher level of cultural awareness. -
Offered Fall Term. Co-Req for Fall Full Term Studio.
Over the past twenty years, Berlin’s magnetism to the creative class has dramatically increased, turning the German capital into a global creative hub.The Berlin Way research project provides a first-hand immersion into the vibrant creative industries of Berlin and explores the Berlin way of living and creating in one of the world’s most dynamic creative environments.
Through the lens of social science, participating students gain insights into Berlin’s development as a city in relation to the evolution of its creative industries.
In addition to guest lectures and discussions with Berlin-based experts (architectural historians, urban developers, city marketeers, etc.), we visit and interview protagonists of Berlin’s creative scene. Students also learn to search and discover the next up-and-coming talents of Berlin.
Collectively, all participants of this course contribute through writing, audio-visual edits and visual interpretations to a knowledge base that maps out the ever-evolving creative industries of Berlin.
Course Learning Outcomes
Students in the Berlin Way course will:
• Gain a deeper understanding of the interrelationship between Berlin’s urban development and the creative industry, its origins, evolution and global impact — its protagonists and hidden champions.
• Explore, practice and apply a German “vocabulary of creativity” and visual storytelling techniques to paint a vivid picture of Berlin’s ever-evolving creative scene.
• Practice a personal viewpoint and editorial voice and learn to contextualize individual observations and interpretations into a bigger picture — learn to recognize trends, movements and their greater implications.
• Develop a personal, intimate connection to Berlin’s creative industries that can lead to an active and ongoing exchange way past the actual project. -
Offered Spring + Summer Terms. Check Co-Req Requirements.
DESIGNMATTERS MINOR ELIGIBLE
Berlin provides a deeper understanding of German culture, the history of the country and the mentality of its people. Being based in the capital of Germany, a strong emphasis is put on the unique situation and position of Berlin in the past, present and in the future.In order to take full advantage of the fact the we are “vor Ort”, lectures are accompanied by extensive field trips. These include museums, exhibitions and architectural landmarks but - as important - students will experience the rhythm of the city and various urban lifestyles of neighborhoods. Traveling, being outside the studio is an essential part of the course.
Open your eyes, your mind, notice the small details, be aware, discover and discuss. Students will always have a camera, pen and paper to sketch and take notes.
Rather than memorizing dates, numbers and historical facts, this course is as holistic and visual as possible. Movies, museums, architecture - a sense of ‘place’ will help students learn about Berlin and Germany but - even more important - to fully immerse and experience your new town.
Course Learning Outcomes
Students in the Cultural Immersion course will:
• Develop a deeper understanding of German history that provides a critical backdrop to understanding the city
• Become better Global Citizens by becoming aware of Germany’s past, present and future as a culture in flux, always developing.
• Learn real world consequences by experiencing historical context through field trips and relevant films and writing
• Provide a personal intimate connection to Berlin by fostering projects that build on their Berlin experiences, interpreting them in their own voice. -
Offered Summer Term. Co-Req for Berlin Special Projects Summer Studio.
DESIGNMATTERS MINOR ELIGIBLE
Contemporary Questions examines a current topic or theme of critical importance that is affecting life, driving support – or dissent - in Berlin, Germany or the E.U. This class will expand student’s view of the world through the lens of EU thinking. How does Berlin’s complex past, influence decisions it must make for the future? Understanding the complex relationships within the tightly knit but culturally and economically diverse European Union will be equally as important as addressing diversity in the local demographics inside Germany.We might address issues around immigration and refugees, cultural integration and tolerance, climate change and energy consumption – or how colonialism is being addressed in the EU.
Students will take different positions to grasp local, national or continental EU points of view and brainstorm scenarios to offer solutions.
Course Learning Outcomes
Students in the Contemporary Questions course will:
• Promote cross-disciplinary discourse and improve oral skills around collective problem-solving.
• Connect students with relevant contemporary issues that drive the cultural, political and economic landscape from Berlin (local) to the EU (continental)
• Examine the complex relationship between communities: within Berlin or between EU countries.
• Highlight accountability as a Global Citizen – identifying critical local issues within a global context.
• Utilize critical thinking and strategy skills in non-design disciplines. (economic, political, cultural)
SCHOLARSHIPS
We want all students to know study abroad is accessible to them. Eligible students should apply for the ArtCenter Berlin Scholarship and Diversity and Access Travel Stipend Award (DATSA). See our Pay for Study Away page for more details on study away affordability.
ABOUT THE ARTCENTER BERLIN STUDIO
Building on deep connections forged over several years with some of Europe’s leading creative agencies, educational institutions and civic leaders, ArtCenter established a year-round studio for students in 2013. The satellite studio hosts trans-disciplinary studio projects, giving ArtCenter students an immersive experience in a city known for reinvention.
More than a study abroad program, the studio environment is designed to deliberately remove students from a traditional setting and move them into the atmosphere of a pop-up design office, organized like a professional creative agency. A network of high-caliber members of the local creative industries—communication and design agencies, artists and architects—support studio projects as dedicated mentors.
The Berlin studio hosts programs for as short as 10 days and as long as 12 weeks. Nearly every major has an opportunity to study in Berlin and there are program types for every academic and budget need.
Additionally, the studio provides the college an opportunity to offer professional education workshops, networking receptions and program space for Europe-based alumni.
Learn more about the ArtCenter Berlin Studio. Other short term Berlin Program options include the Eye on Berlin program hosted by Illustration or the Berlin Fine Art program hosted by Fine Art.
ABOUT BERLIN, GERMANY
HOUSING DETAILS
Students will be housed at Creon Cospace, located at the popular Viktoriapark in Kreuzberg, just a few short stops from the ArtCenter Berlin Studio. Students will have their own single room, share a bathroom with one student and a kitchen with eight. There is lounge space and a terrace located in the building. The apartments are fully furnished and come with bedding a towels, along with basic kitchen supplies.
Berlin is a vibrant and dynamic city that has long been a haven for designers and artists. Known for its rich history, eclectic architecture, and thriving creative scene, Berlin offers an inspiring environment for artistic expression and innovation. The city's diverse neighborhoods, such as Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain, and Mitte, are renowned for their galleries, studios, and creative hubs.
Berlin’s low cost of living compared to other major European cities attracts a global community of creatives, fostering a spirit of experimentation and collaboration. The city's history of reinvention and its current status as a cultural melting pot make it a unique place where traditional and contemporary art forms blend seamlessly. With numerous art festivals, design exhibitions, and a strong network of creative professionals, Berlin is a vibrant canvas for those looking to push artistic boundaries and explore new ideas.
In essence, Berlin is not just a city of historical significance but also a fertile ground for creative exploration and innovation. Whether you’re interested in architecture, graphic design, fashion, or digital media, Berlin’s dynamic environment promises to inspire and challenge design students seeking to push the boundaries of their craft.