Archinect - News

Influential 1970s women architects exhibition revisited in new Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation series

2024-04-15T14:03:00-04:00

The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF) has launched a new audio documentary on an influential 1970s exhibition on women in architecture. Part of the BWAF series ‘New Angle: Voice,’ the episode will profile the Brooklyn Museum’s 1977 exhibition ‘Women in American Architecture.’

Curated by architect Susana Torre and sponsored by the Architectural League of New York, the exhibition received significant coverage across national and architectural media, including a review by Ada Louise Huxtable in The New York Times. The new audio episode, ‘Laying the Groundwork: Women in American Architecture, Spring 1977,’ debuts the first program of New Angle: Voice’s third and conclusive season, with later episodes to continue exploring the influences of women in architecture.

Image courtesy: Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation

Last year, we reported on the series’ profiling of Huxtable, the New York Times’ first-ever architectural critic, and Amaza Lee Meredith, a Black woman born in 18...

Filmmaker Kevin Siyuan releases final ‘A Wes Anderson-ish Singapore’ update

2023-08-11T18:15:00-04:00

The second and final update to architecturally-inspired filmmaker Kevin Siyuan’s documentation of Singapore has been released, offering his follow-up to a popular 2021 video that compared many of the city’s iconic landmarks to structures and interiors included in the cinema of fellow design lover Wes Anderson.

In the 19-plus minutes of ‘A Wes Anderson-ish Singapore Vol.2’, Siyuan weaves a narrative about the aesthetic qualities latent in the city and related to Anderson’s films. Siyuan said he was particularly inspired by the recently-released ‘Asteroid City’ and ever-popular ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’, adding that it offers an equally concise portrait of the various aspects of land use – a component that has helped Singapore earn a reputation as the greenest city in Asia.

As he tells it: “The year is 2023, as we embrace the new normal, have a breath of the refreshing Singapore Air, and welcome back to our island, the tropical getaway and the City in Nature. Change happens very quickly...

New NEOM documentary features Thom Mayne, Peter Cook, Reinier de Graaf, and other architects speaking highly of The Line megacity project

2023-07-28T13:06:00-04:00

A new look behind the process and select architects involved in Saudi Arabia’s controversial The Line megacity for NEOM has been released, answering some questions as to its ideation while leaving many remaining in regard to the project's structural engineering, technical specifics, and design feasibility overall.

Among the torrent of quickly-spliced and placable bromides, the 45-minute "documentary" features Peter Cook stating, "if it's to be a success... parts of it will fail." None of the interviewees, including especially Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, offered an explanation as to how the "top-down, hardcore engineering" OMA partner Reinier de Graaf describes will be carried out in any detail, an element which has been a constant source of criticism since the segment was first announced a year ago.

"Many projects acquire their sanity as they go along, and I think very, very much the case here too — and the jury's out," de Graaf stated before bemoaning a "complete lac...

Oberlander Prize winner Julie Bargmann's work and life featured in 'Pioneers of American Landscape Design' series

2023-05-30T18:06:00-04:00

The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) has just released the latest episode of their ongoing Pioneers of American Landscape Design series featuring an oral history and overview of the work of the 2021 inaugural Oberlander Prize winner Julie Bargmann.

The D.I.R.T. founder and University of Virginia professor emerita profiles her career in landscape architecture beginning with her graduation from the Harvard GSD in 1987. From there, Bargmann went on to become a Fellow in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome before establishing the studio in Minnesota in 1992. Bargmann has since gone on to win the prestigious Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award and is elsewhere recognized as the "Queen of Slag" for her work outside of academia, which focuses heavily on post-industrial sites and the public realm.

The Turtle Creek Water Works in Dallas, Texas. Photo: © Charles A. Birnbaum, courtesy of The Cultural Landscape Foundation

Adriaan Geuze and Michael Van Valkenburgh are also ...

Thomas Phifer's Richard Serra sculpture pavilion at the Glenstone Museum debuts in new film

2023-04-05T11:35:00-04:00

Thomas Phifer's custom-designed building for Richard Serra's monumental 2017 Four Rounds: Equal Weight, Unequal Measure sculpture at Maryland's Glenstone Museum is the subject of a new documentary short from Rava Films.

Premiering at last month's Montreal International Festival of Films on Art, You Are The Subject: Richard Serra at Glenstone charts the journey of the 656,000-pound sculpture from New Jersey to its new home at the 230-acre museum, where it was installed in July 2021.

According to the Glenstone, the film features previously unpublished reflections from the artist and the museum's Director and Co-Founder, Emily Rales, along with other key collaborators.

Still from "You Are The Subject: Richard Serra at Glenstone”. Image courtesy Glenstone Museum

The sculpture comprises four 82-ton forged steel segments which are now housed in a dedicated 4,000-square-foot pavilion that the architect designed in collaboration with Serra. This is now Serra's third site-specific piece at t...

New audio documentary on Ray Eames to launch on International Women’s Day

2023-02-27T11:46:00-05:00

The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation is set to launch the second season of its award-winning audio documentary series New Angle: Voice. Debuting on March 8th to coincide with International Women’s Day, the first episode in the series will explore the story of Ray Eames (1912–1988), with future episodes exploring other influential female figures in design.

The introductory episode on Ray Eames will present a history of her contributions to the arts, architecture, graphic design, textile design, and furniture innovation. The narrative will also be informed by interviews with figures spanning art history, curation, design, the Eames Foundation, and the Library of Congress.

“Our original story about Ray Eames draws on new research of her years as a painter in New York, from archival footage and audio of her media appearances as well as interviews with Eames family members and employees of Eames Office, their design studio in Venice, California,” explained Cynthia Phifer Kracauer A...

Lee Bey explores Chicago’s overlooked South Side in new PBS special

2023-02-23T08:00:00-05:00

Chicago native and noted architectural photographer Lee Bey recently took PBS on a tour of his city’s overlooked South Side.

Among the stops on the Sun-Times critic’s excursion were his former high school, pioneering local architect John Moutoussamy’s self-designed private residence in West Chesterfield, Jeanne Gang’s overshadowed SOS Children’s Village Lavezzario Community Center, and the Art Moderne First Church of Deliverance from 1939.

Towards the end, he also mentions his optimism for young people, preference for the community-based development of religious projects, and what he called the “democratization” of historic preservation as the things that give him the most hope as a professional chronicler of the built environment.

Previously on Archinect: Lee Bey reminds us of the beauty and importance of Chicago's Black Churches

Bey also talked about the well-documented “heyday” of Bronzeville, a neighborhood that is now experiencing a new, contemporary renaissance with multiple ...

A new documentary explores the process behind UVA's Memorial to Enslaved Laborers for the first time

2022-11-07T17:42:00-05:00

A new documentary from local filmmaker Erik Duda exploring the process and impact of the University of Virginia’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers has been released, providing insights into the creation of one of the most important public monuments in America since the opening of Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1982.

Titled The Lives Between the Lines, Duda’s documentary was included as part of this year’s Virginia Film Festival and offers a look into the implementation, design, and eventual construction of the monument, which, unfortunately, had to open in a subdued ceremony last year owing to health concerns related to the pandemic.

Previously on Archinect: A decade in the making, UVA’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers begins to take shape

The memorial was first commissioned in 2013 as part of the UVA President’s Commission on Slavery and the University, which eventually led to the formation of a Community Engagement Committee comprised of descendants of the enslaved communities ...

Surviving Surfside: Documentary about Miami condo collapse announced

2022-07-07T14:04:00-04:00

The Miami Herald is partnering with 101 Studios and Grain Media on a documentary that will investigate the deadly 2021 collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida. Surviving Surfside will interrogate the failure of the 12-story building in the early morning of June 24, 2021 that left 98 people dead and is still under official investigation, the companies announced on Tuesday.

The Herald's in-depth breaking news coverage of the disastrous Champlain Towers South collapse one year ago recently won the paper a Pulitzer Prize and will be a primary source of information for the upcoming Surviving Surfside documentary.

Stefano Boeri releases documentary about 'world’s first social housing vertical forest'

2021-12-22T14:59:00-05:00

Stefano Boeri Architetti has released a short documentary on the Trudo Vertical Forest, which the firm bills as “the first social housing vertical forest in the world.” Built in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, the project draws its inspiration from the firm’s Bosco Verticale in Milan.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Stefano Boeri Architetti (@stefanoboeriarchitetti)

The 19-story tower rises 230 feet (70 meters) and contains 125 apartments designed to accommodate long-income users, particularly young couples. In addition, thirty homes in the building have been reserved for asylum seekers, political refugees, and people with disabilities.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Stefano Boeri Architetti (@stefanoboeriarchitetti)

The facades are adorned with 135 trees of various species as well as 10,000 shrubs and plants. To service the extensive greenery, the scheme contains four collection tanks housing 20,000 liters of rainwater eac...

New PBS documentary details the NYC Department of Design and Construction's World Trade Center cleanup

2021-09-10T14:11:00-04:00

A new documentary airing on PBS recounts the efforts of the NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC) as it spearheaded the gargantuan task of cleaning Ground Zero following the attacks on the World Trade Center 20 years ago.

“NYC DDC 9/11” by Ironbound Films features a collection of historic footage interspersed with interviews of DDC staff, offering a candid recollection of the events of 9/11. The documentary goes into detail about DDC’s steadfast process of removing 1.8 million tons of debris from the site.

“As the City faced one of its greatest crises in its history, DDC managed cleanup of the wreckage of lower Manhattan, even as the search for fellow New Yorkers continued,” said DDC Commissioner Jamie Torres-Springer. “This effort was predicted to take years, but DDC staff was able to accomplish it in eight months of long, hard, and emotionally difficult work. The story of this work is now told vividly by current and former DDC staff members who shared their unique insi...

Spike Lee re-edits HBO series following backlash over inclusion of 9/11 conspiracy theorists

2021-08-26T15:17:00-04:00

Facing mounting criticism for spotlighting conspiracy theorists in his new HBO documentary series about the Sept. 11 attacks on New York, the filmmaker Spike Lee said Wednesday that he was re-editing the final episode.

The final episode of Lee’s four-part docuseries “NYC Epicenters 9/11-2021½,” which explores New York’s greatest challenges in the 21st century, including the attacks on 9/11 and the COVID-19 pandemic, featured members of the conspiracy organization Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, who believe the World Trade Center was destroyed by a controlled demolition. The filmmaker faced criticism and backlash over the group's inclusion in the show after it was made available for preview.

Critics stated that the episode appeared to balance the perspectives and even at times side with the perspectives of the conspiracy theorists.

Lee’s response in a statement to the media reads: “I’m Back In The Editing Room And Looking At The Eighth And Final Chapter Of NYC EPICENTERS 9/11➔2021½. I Respectfully Ask You To Hold Your Judgment Until You See The FINAL CUT.”

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Lee defends the inclusion of the conspiracy group stating, “I mean, I got questions. And...

Bêka & Lemoine's latest film follows Pritzker Prize winner Ryūe Nishizawa for a day-long journey through the streets of Tokyo

2020-10-08T17:44:00-04:00

Tokyo Ride, the latest film from creators Bêka & Lemoine revisits the genre of the rod movie in a uniquely personal way, taking the viewer aboard Pritzker Prize winner Ryūe Nishizawa's vintage Alfa Romeo for a day-long journey through the streets of Tokyo. Throughout the film, the duo pose questions on how rooted architecture practice is and how much the built and cultural environment feeds and shapes our imagination.

The film was awarded the Artistic Vision Award at DocAviv 2020, an Oscar-qualifying documentary-only festival. "The directors do not pretend to encompass the entire oeuvre of Ryūe Nishizawa, but something in the intimacy of the car ride (the car being the undeniable film's supporting actor), creates exceptional conditions to getting to know his personality and his world," said the jurors in a statement.

The film is due to premier in many major architecture film festivals both in Europe and North America, with screenings at the next CAFx in Copenhagen, AFFR in Rotterda...

Ai Weiwei directs documentary on COVID lockdown in Wuhan remotely, from Europe

2020-09-03T14:29:00-04:00

Titled Coronation, the documentary film looks at the lockdown in Wuhan, China during the COVID-19 outbreak that took place earlier this year. The work, which Ai Weiwei remotely directed and produced from Europe, takes viewers into the heart of the rapidly constructed emergency field hospitals and ICU wards, showing the entire process of diagnosis and treatment. The filming of the documentary was done by ordinary citizens living in Wuhan.

Documentary explores the lives of 4 innovative women in architecture

2020-08-10T12:16:00-04:00

City Dreamers is a Canadian documentary directed by Joseph Hillel that looks at the lives of Phyllis Lambert, Denise Scott Brown, Cornelia Oberlander, and Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, all notable powerhouses in architecture and design who were among some of the first women to rise to prominence within the male dominated industry of the time.

Founding and creating the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal is probably one of Phyllis Lambert's greatest feats. Apart from working with the likes of Mies van der Rohe and receiving honorary degrees from roughly 26 universities, Lambert has also built a commendable career as a philanthropist.

Denise Scott Brown's work along with her husband, Robert Venturi is often regarded as some of the most influential amongst twentieth century architectural discourse. Learning from Las Vegas is a favorite. But, perhaps even more notably, Scott Brown grew to become a powerful advocate for Women in Architecture and continues to be a symbol for equality...

Filmmaker Gary Hustwit is streaming his collection of design documentaries for free

2020-03-22T15:16:00-04:00

During the global COVID-19 crisis, while most of us are housebound, filmmaker Gary Hustwit is releasing his collection of full-length documentaries online, for free. It appears that they will be released sequentially, starting with his first doc Helvetica, until March 24th, with the rest of his titles following.

"Helvetica" is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives.

"Objectified" is a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them.

"Urbanized" is a feature-length documentary about the design of cities, which looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers.

"Workplace" was a project for the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale abo...

Director Alysa Nahmias on László Moholy-Nagy and The New Bauhaus

2020-02-13T13:43:00-05:00

On this episode of Archinect Sessions, we’re sharing a conversation I had with Alysa Nahmias, the director and producer of the documentary film “The New Bauhaus.” We recorded this conversation last month, poolside, a few hours before the film premiered to a packed house in the Annenberg Theater at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Panel discussion following the screening at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, photo by Paul Petrunia. From L-R: Alysa Nahmias (director/producer), Miranda Yousef (editor), Ashley Lukasik (co-producer), & Erin Wright (producer)

Alysa, a trained architect-turned-filmmaker, made her directorial debut in 2011 with Unfinished Spaces, a critically acclaimed documentary about the unfinished National Art School in Cuba.

Light-Space Modulator, László Moholy-Nagy, 1922–1930. Photographed at the Art Institute of Chicago. Image from The New Bauhaus courtesy of Opendox. Art courtesy of the Moholy-Nagy Foundation. Director: Alysa Nahmias. Photog...

Paul R. Williams documentary to debut for Black History Month 2020

2020-02-06T18:30:00-05:00

Paul Revere Williams was one of the nation's most eminent architects beginning in the early 1920s and spanning his 5-decade-long career. He designed homes for celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, Barbara Stanwyck, William Holden, Lucille Ball, and Desi Arnaz earning him the well-known nickname "Architect to the Stars." William's name is coupled with with iconic works of architecture like the Beverly Hills Hotel, the MCA HQ Building, and the LAX Theme Building.

Yet despite his notoriety, Williams faced discrimination because of his race. As an African-American architect, his social acceptance greatly contrasted that of his professional embracing. Right in time for Black History Month, PBS will be premiering Hollywood's Architect: the Paul R. Williams Story, which "tells the compelling, but little known story, of how he used talent and perseverance to beat the odds and create a body of work that can be found from coast to coast." the film will premiere on PBS stations thr...

New documentary follows an artist's quest to access the archives of revered Mexican architect Luis Barragán

2019-05-01T16:15:00-04:00

A new documentary, to be shown at the IFC Center later this month, follows artist Jill Magid's bizarre journey to accessing the archives of revered Mexican architect Luis Barragán. Titled "The Proposal," the film is that last chapter in her project—The Barragán Archives—that started back in 2013, when Magid began her efforts to photograph his works.

Barragán's one-of-a-kind archive is owned by the Swiss furniture company Vitra, whose tight grip on the materials hampered Magid's efforts—so much so, that the artist even exhumed some of Barragán's ashes, famously pressing them into a two-carat diamond in the hopes it could be used in exchange for access to the vault.

This episode, along with the myriad of other events and procedures that went into trying to get access to Barrágan's archives, have been meticulously documented and chronicled in her new film The Proposal. Information on upcoming screenings can be found here. You can watch a trailer for the film below.

...

Christopher Hawthorne's Frank Lloyd Wright documentary “That Far Corner: Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles” to air next week

2018-03-01T19:19:00-05:00

Why focus on Wright, American architecture’s equivalent of Abraham Lincoln, the giant who casts a shadow over his field big enough to blot out smaller and underrepresented figures? [...] Because the architect’s brilliant if forbidding Southern California houses, the most important of which were designed in a burst of creative energy during the first few months of 1923, remain mysterious, their meaning and inspiration as opaque as their heavy, richly patterned concrete-block facades.

Christopher Hawthorne's documentary, “That Far Corner: Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles”, focuses on aspects of the infamous architect's work which remain enigmatic. Filming inside eight Wright buildings, the project interviews around 20 people to present new insights around these mysterious works.

Hawthorne explains, "My overarching goal was to bring some new, sustained attention to a group of houses that have lingered too long, given their importance to the American architectural canon, in the relative shadows." The title “That Far Corner" originates from a phrase Wright used to describe Southern California in his autobiography.

As part of a new ARTBOUND season, the documentary airs next Tuesday March 6, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on KCET-TV. The episode will also stream online at KCET, as well as on Amazon, YouTube, Roku, and Apple TV following its broadcast. Tune in and decide what you make of Hawthorne's theory. As a bonus, several of the interviews occur inside residential designs by ...

A new documentary series explores Flores & Prats' renovation of a Barcelona theatre

2018-02-15T15:23:00-05:00

Flores & Prats Architects have released a new documentary series, ESCALA 1:5, focusing on their design for Sala Beckett Theatre and International Drama Centre in Barcelona.

Sala Beckett Theatre facade, by Flores & Prats, located in Barcelona. Image: Adrià Goula.

The series consists of 5 episodes each 10 minutes long, produced by 15-L. Films and directed by Patricia Tamayo and Albert Badia. Retracing the journey behind the architectural renovation, this short series documents the space and the bond which ties the building to its neighborhood.

Still from 'ESCALA 1:5' series, by Flores & Prats. Image: Flores & Prats.

Starring architects Ricardo Flores and Eva Prats, the film also includes Toni Casares, the director of Sala Beckett, as well as Sergi Belbel, playwright and former director of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, artists Soraya Smithson and Antoni Miralda, and designer Curro Claret.

Ticket box entry of Sala Beckett, by Flores & Prats, located in Barcelona. Image: Adrià Goul...

'My Dad, the Starchitect': an emerging documentary subgenre

2017-10-16T14:21:00-04:00

In an emerging subgenre of architectural documentary, Nathaniel Kahn, Tomas Koolhaas, and Eric Saarinen take a personal look at their mythologized fathers. [...] Whether a film deals in the social or monumental legacy of an architect, the idea of the genius—which has been so unevenly applied—should come under scrutiny. As the children of architects have conferred through these films, nobody can be all things to all people.

In her piece for CityLab, Daisy Alioto looks at three recent examples of iconic architects having their life's work documented in film by their sons: Rem Koolhaas in REM, produced by Tomas Koolhaas; Eero Saarinen in Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future, by Eric Saarinen; and Louis Kahn in My Architect, a film by Nathaniel Kahn.

In case you missed it, listen to our One-to-One podcast interview with Tomas Koolhaas.

Examining Buffalo architecture through film at UB

2017-09-01T20:34:00-04:00

Yamazaki’s residency is part of the program’s ambitious and multi-dimensional schedule for 2017-18 that opened in April with New York City-based composer Laura Kaminsky and virtual artist Rebecca Allen and continued with Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista in July, which included the unveiling of “Beat Blossom,” Buffalo sculptor Shasti O’Leary Soudant’s public art installation in the Percussion Garden of Artpark, in Lewiston, New York.

As part of its Creative Arts Initiative (CAI), the University at Buffalo will have Rima Yamazaki, an independent documentary filmmaker specializing in contemporary art and architecture, in residence Sep 1 to Oct 31.

Yamazaki directs, films and edits all of her work. Her new documentary on Buffalo architecture will examine architectural masterpieces and abandoned houses, preservation and demolition through a personal observational style that is centered around reflecting on the arts. “I’d like to reveal something that cannot be expressed in words. This is to be a cinematic study on the relationship between architecture, society and people,” says Yamazaki, “Architecture can be a treasure or a burden to a city. A building is a big expensive thing, not only to build, but also to maintain. It’s not just a place for people to live and work; it also reflects the society and people’s lives.”

On Wednesday, Sep 13, from 6-7:30 pm, UB will host a screening and a discussion of Yamazaki’s 2010 f...

Examining the Housing Crisis—a book and a film

2017-09-01T15:46:00-04:00

Housing has instead become one of the primary drivers of global capitalism, through commodification and financialization, making its function as real estate more important than its use as lived, space. It is the result of spatial developments being market-driven. Madden and Marcuse: “housing is not produced and distributed for dwelling at all,” but “as a commodity to enrich the few.”

The German documentary City for Sale that came out last year and the recently released book In Defense of Housing are the perfect match for anyone who wants to learn about the broken nature of housing markets, the crisis currently happening in all big cities worldwide.

City for Sale consists of interviews taken over a course of 4 years, where the author, Andreas Wilcke, accompanies real estate agents and investors during their daily routine and films tenants struggling to cope with the situation, providing the viewers with an opportunity to experience the turnaround of a whole city virtually at first hand.

In Defense of Housing by David Madden and Peter Marcuse, too, is full of examples from both sides of the story, where personal property are examined as both categories–shelter, safety, identity for the general population versus investment and a supplemental source of income for the lucky few. The book also demonstrates examples of numerous cities and countries, detailing destructi...

Check out the trailer for BIG TIME, a new documentary about Bjarke Ingels

2017-04-11T12:31:00-04:00

Bjarke Ingels, founder of BIG and master of promotion, is the subject of a new documentary, titled BIG TIME. The filmmakers have released a first trailer, which centers in part around an MRI scan of Ingel’s head. Apparently, he suffered a concussion.

Check it out here:

BIG TIME - International Trailer from Good Company Pictures on Vimeo.

Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses star in “Citizen Jane: Battle for the City” documentary, coming to U.S. theaters in April

2017-03-20T16:15:00-04:00

The historic feud between Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses is hitting the silver screen in “Citizen Jane: Battle for the City”, a fairly new feature-length documentary directed by Matt Tyrnauer and produced by Robert Hammond (co-founder and executive director of NYC's Friends of the High Line). Following premieres at DOC NYC and the Toronto International Film Festival last year, “Citizen Jane” will be released in theaters and on demand in the U.S. on April 21.

Set in the 1950s and '60s in New York City, the film centers around Jane Jacobs' fight against Robert Moses' ruthless urban “renewal” schemes that targeted NYC's “slums” and its vital communities — a situation that many cities worldwide still face today. It also sheds light on European modernist ideals of architecture and urban design finding its place in the U.S., according to one film review.

“We realized that no one had done a film about Jane Jacobs,” Producer Robert Hammond said in a statement. “She came up with her own common s...

The BIG Abstract; A conversation with Morgan Neville, Director/Producer of Abstract's Bjarke Ingels Documentary on Netflix

2017-02-16T19:16:00-05:00

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've already heard about Abstract, Netflix's incredible new documentary series on design. This week we're talking to Abstract's executive producer, Morgan Neville, who also directed the episodes featuring Bjarke Ingels and Christoph Niemann.

As one of the world's most groundbreaking and talented documentary filmmakers, there's a good chance you have already seen Morgan's work. If you haven't, a good place to start is "20 Feet from Stardom", his Academy Award-winning doc that takes a look at the fascinating lives of the often-overlooked backup singers. His documentary on Yo-Yo Ma, "The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble", will be premiering on HBO in March. I'm particularly looking forward to his upcoming Mr. Rogers documentary that he mentions in our conversation.

Yes, Archinect Sessions makes a cameo in the episode, with a clip of us sharing some of Bjarke's harsh criticism from commenters in our forum.

Listen to episode ...

Watch "Ex of IN House," an unusual, compelling new video from Steven Holl

2017-01-24T12:43:00-05:00

Poetry, abstracted Venn diagrams of spheres, and a love for natural materials are just some of the components that go into this video from Steven Holl, who acts as a kind of a hyper-thoughtful Huell Howser as he explores a gorgeous new home parented primarily by concept. Entitled "Ex of IN House," the video explores the formulation, execution, and daily reality of a home built on a splendor of acreage in Rhinebeck, New York. Likening program to a bunch of bananas, Holl advocates for abstraction in the design process, explaining that with the concept of IN, "all space is sacred." With a soundtrack that seems to combine the plinkiness of Thomas Newman with the urgency of Clint Mansell, it's a bit of a wonder (click here to view).

Eero Saarinen documentary to air on PBS Dec. 27th

2016-12-01T13:27:00-05:00

For those who are interested in seeing Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future (reviewed her e on Archinect), they'll have their chance on December 27th when PBS airs the documentary as part of its American Masters Series. The film, which charts both Eero's professional and personal stories, will officially be released on DVD on January 3rd, 2017 from PBS distribution. In the meantime, here's a clip from the film where Eliel Saarinen finds out it is not him but his son Eero who has won the competition for St. Louis memorial design:

Surveying the failure of utopian ideals in Tokyo's Nakagin Capsule Tower

2016-11-01T12:32:00-04:00

Despite its potential for easy refurbishment and adaptability, the Nakagin Capsule Tower has not exactly fulfilled the hoped-for mission of its designers. A team of documentary filmmakers recently attempted to stay in the tower, only to find the majority of its units without plumbing or much in the way of livable amenities. As the narrator laments, "Maybe nowhere else is the gap between the utopian 1960s and 70s dream of the future and the reality of life in the 21st century as acutely felt as right here." Check out the full, thoughtful video here: