Architecture

  • Lance Bird – The World of Tomorrow (1984)

    1981-1990ArchitectureDocumentaryLance BirdUSA

    The film was first broadcast on PBS in 1984 as a 60-minute feature and later expanded into an 84-minute production.

    From New York Times review
    ”THE World of Tomorrow,” which opens today at the Film Forum, is a fine, funny feature-length documentary about the New York World’s Fair of 1939, when, for a few, short, glittery months, Western civilization paused between the Depression and World War II.Read More »

  • Heinz Emigholz – Perret in Frankreich und Algerien AKA Perret in France and Algeria (2012)

    2011-2020ArchitectureDocumentaryGermanyHeinz Emigholz

    Synopsis:
    The film PERRET IN FRANCE AND ALGERIA presents thirty buildings and architectural ensembles of the French architects and construction engineers Auguste and Gustave Perret. Auguste Perret has masterfully refined concrete construction in the implementation of his projects and instilled in them a classical expression. Working in parallel to the execution of numerous construction projects in France, Perret was building under conditions of colonialism in North Africa. The film traces this division chronologically. The buildings erected in Algeria from 1912 until 1952 are for the first time the subject of a film, as are the ones built in France.Read More »

  • Heinz Emigholz – Loos Ornamental (2008)

    2001-2010ArchitectureDocumentaryExperimentalGermanyHeinz Emigholz

    Heinz Emigholz-Loos Ornamental / Photography and Beyond – Part 13 (2008)

    The film shows 27 still-existing buildings and interiors by Austrian architect Adolf Loos (1870–1933) in order of their construction. Adolf Loos was one of the pioneers of European Modernist architecture. His vehement turn against ornamentation on buildings triggered a controversy in architectural theory. The development of his “spatial plan” launched a new way of thinking about spaces to be built. His houses, furniture for shops and apartments, facades, and monuments were built between 1899 and 1931. They were filmed in 2006 in Vienna, Lower Austria, Prague, Brno, Pilsen, Nachod, and Paris in their present surroundings.Read More »

  • Man Ray – Les mystères du château de Dé AKA The Mysteries of the Chateau de De (1929)

    Arthouse1921-1930ArchitectureExperimentalFranceMan Ray

    Mannequin hands hold a pair of dice. A castle is perched on a hilltop. Below it, a posh, modern villa. Meanwhile, far from Paris, two men with masked faces play dice in a bar. They decide to drive to Paris. Country roads, hills, fences. The posh “chateau” appears again: meticulous garden, fancy interior, odd sculptures. And at home? “No one, NO ONE.” For the next two days, masked figures play dice, frolic by the pool, perform exercises with a ball. Two new figures arrive. Masked. They search and find the dice. They dance. Mannequin hands hold a pair of dice.Read More »

  • King Vidor – The Fountainhead (1949)

    1941-1950ArchitectureClassicsDramaKing VidorPhilosophy on ScreenUSA

    Quote:
    The hero of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead is Howard Roark (Gary Cooper), a fiercely independent architect obviously patterned after Frank Lloyd Wright. Rather than compromise his ideals, Roark takes menial work as a quarryman to finance his projects. He falls in love with heiress Dominique (Patricia Neal), but ends the relationship when he has the opportunity to construct buildings according to his own wishes. Dominique marries a newspaper tycoon (Raymond Massey) who at first conducts a vitriolic campaign against the “radical” Roark, but eventually becomes his strongest supporter. Upon being given a public-housing contract on the proviso that his plans not be changed in any way, Roark is aghast to learn that his designs will be radically altered. Roark sneaks into the unfinished structure at night, makes certain no one else is around, and dynamites the project into oblivion.Read More »

  • Ken Burns & Lynn Novick – Frank Lloyd Wright [+Extra] (1998)

    1991-2000ArchitectureDocumentaryKen BurnsLynn NovickUSA

    Frank Lloyd Wright tells the story of the greatest of all American architects. Wright was an authentic American genius, a man who believed he was destined to redesign the world, creating everything anew. Over the course of his long career, he designed over eight hundred buildings, including such revolutionary structures as the Guggenheim Museum, the Johnson Wax Building, Fallingwater, Unity Temple and Taliesin. His buildings and his ideas changed the way we live, work and see the world around us.Read More »

  • Wojciech Has & Stanislaw Rózewicz – Ulica Brzozowa AKA Brzozowa Street (1947)

    1941-1950ArchitectureDocumentaryPolandShort FilmStanislaw RózewiczWojciech Has

    Quote:
    The film shows the revival of Warsaw after the war. The city slowly rises from the fall, mainly thanks to the people who work hard to rebuild their capital. The documentary, despite its obvious propaganda message, has been made for heart-rending, and today its paintings represent an undeniable historical and archival value.Read More »

  • Sydney Pollack – Sketches of Frank Gehry (2005)

    2001-2010ArchitectureDocumentarySydney PollackUSA

    Quote:
    Oscar winning director Sydney Pollack takes a sharp sideways turn with SKETCHES OF FRANK GEHRY, a documentary about the noted architect. Usually known for making grandiose productions such as THE FIRM and OUT OF AFRICA, Pollock adds a genuine curio to his filmmaking resume with this movie. Although the two men have been friends for years, Pollock thankfully bypasses the opportunity to pay a fawning tribute to Gehry, instead presenting a well-balanced portrait that offers both positive and negative commentators the chance to etch their thoughts into celluloid. But it quickly becomes clear that the biggest naysayer of all is Gehry himself, who is painted as a highly self-critical man, clearly ill-at-ease with fame and his own achievements.Read More »

  • Alejandro Jodorowsky – Santa sangre [+Commentary] (1989)

    1981-1990Alejandro JodorowskyArchitectureArthouseCultMexico

    Quote:
    Does the prolonged gestation period account for the bulging-valise feel of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s seething, gore-drenched carnivale? Not really — all of his pictures seem deliberately shaped to let the fantasies spill over once poured in, and this lushly scabrous murkfest, made after nearly a decade of inactivity, is true to the molten-lava of Jodorowsky’s imagination. As in his ’70s freakouts, the movie follows the trajectory of the subconscious, namely Fenix’s (as in “rising from the ashes,” and played at different ages by the filmmaker’s sons, Axel and Adan), first spotted perched nekkid atop a tree in the asylum. Cue flashback, and the parade of candy-colored melodrama surging out of the “Circo del Gringo,” traumas piling up on little Fenix’s innocence via his bloated, randy cowboy dad (Guy Stockwell) and his fervid-eyed mom (Blanca Guerra), who, when not dangling from a trapeze by her hair, presides over an order of fanatics worshipping an armless martyr. Read More »

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