Architecture

Sharon Lockhart’s new film, Pódworka, takes as its subject matter the courtyards of Lodz, Poland, and the children that inhabit them. A ubiquitous architectural element of the city, Lodz’ courtyards are the playgrounds of the children that live in the surrounding apartment buildings. Separated from the streets, they provide a sanctuary from the traffic and commotion of the city. Yet far from the overdetermined playgrounds of America, the courtyards are still very much urban environments. In six different courtyards throughout the city of Lodz, we see parking lots, storage units, and metal armatures become jungle gyms, sandboxes, and soccer fields in the children’s world. A series of fleeting interludes within city life, Pódworka is both a study of a specific place and an evocation of the resourcefulness of childhood. (lockhartstudio.com)Read More »

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This award-winning homage, illuminates the life of German Jewish Expressionist architect Erich Mendelsohn. His story unfolds through the letter exchange, the correspondence of two artists brought to life by director, Duki Dror. Mendelsohn’s career followed the trajectory of many German Jews fleeing Nazism; he worked in England, Israel and in the USA. His earlier work, the Einstein Tower, is one of the important exemplars of modern architecture. Dror deftly juxtaposes the architect’s designs with contemporary images, weaving in reflections from architects who use these unique buildings today – a testament to the integrity and timelessness of his visionary design.Read More »

A documentary about the early beginning of the deconstructivist era of the architecture flourishing in the 80´ties.
Interviews with Zaha Hadid, Peter Eisenman, Bernard Tschumi, Frank Gehry, Daniel Liebeskind, Derrida, Micheal Sorkin and more.Read More »

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An old man is wandering round a badly signposted and as yet mostly under construction Prague housing estate looking for the high rise block into which he is supposed to be moving with his daughter’s family. The old granddad from the countryside likes chatting, nothing escapes his eyes and he wants to give everyone a helping hand.Read More »

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Santa Sangre is the surreal horror story about a young man, Fenix (Axel Jodorowsky) who has grown up in a circus with his mother Concha (Blanca Guerra) and his philandering father. Fenix witnesses a brutal fight between his mother and father, at the end of which his mother loses both of her arms and his father commits suicide. Fenix spends years in an insane asylum, before his mother persuades him to act as her hands in her bizarre nightclub act. Soon, Concha is having Fenix perform a variety of murders, where he is killing every female in sight. Though the film has some of the hallucinatory qualities of Jodorowsky’s earlier films, Santa Sangre doesn’t quite have the same punch, particularly in terms of cerebral and emotional impact, despite its fine visuals. Santa Sangre is available in both R-rated and NC-17 edits.Read More »

With the participation of William Jordy, Jonas Salk, Aldo Rossi, Arata Isozaki, Tadao Ando, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott-Brown, Brendan Gill, and others. Narration by Kenneth Frampton.

As an architect, educator, and philosopher, Louis Kahn played a prominent role in the history of 20th century architecture. An examination of six of his most significant buildings gives insight to his unique vision: The Salk Institute in La Jolla; the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth; the Center for British Art in New Haven; the library at Philips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire; the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and the Parliament Buildings of Bangladesh in Dhaka.Read More »

“We shall make sure that this work will not be separated from those who built it.” (Adolf Hitler)

Legend has it that Hitler came up with the idea of the autobahn while he was in prison in the twenties, and for this reason it was also called “Adolf Hitler’s road”. But neither Hitler nor any other Nazi invented the autobahn – the industry had already worked out the plans before 1933. What the Nazis, however, did invent was the “aesthetic of the autobahn”: it was supposed to be a cultural monument – “not the shortest but the noblest connection between two points”. The autobahn was planned as an artistic work of construction and was elevated to an object of art.Read More »

“It’s a black-and-white record of European cities in the dark (2-5am), from Basle to Belfast. Quiet, and meditative, what ermerges most strongly is an eerie sense of city landscapes as deserted film sets, in which the desolate architecture overwhelms any sense of reality. The only reassurance that we are not in some endless machine-Metropolis is the shadow of daytime activity: a juggernaut plunging through a darkened village, a plague of small birds in the predawn light. The whole thing is underscored by a beautiful ‘composed’ soundtrack, from quietly humming stretlamps to reggae and the rumble of armoured cars in Belfast. A strange and remarkable combination of dream, documentary and science-fiction.”
Chris Auty, in: Programmheft London Film Co-opRead More »

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Heinz Emigholz, the premiere purveyor of architectural oddities (Sullivan’s Bridges, Goff in the Desert), meticulously documents 15 rooms of the enormous Villa Cargnacco in Lombardy, Italy, designed by proto-fascist poet Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863-1938). The controversial figure spent 17 years designing the Vittoriale, a state museum on Lake Garda, and furnishing the Villa Cargnacco, which is part of the grand complex. This unusual documentary resulted from a photography session in the villa, when four friends–cinematographers Irene von Alberti, Elfi Mikesch, Klaus Wyborny and Heinz Emigholz–simultaneously filmed the rooms and furnishings of the villa in their own specific styles.Read More »