Archinect - News

This Earth Day, watch PBS’ new highlight of early solar pioneer Mária Telkes

2023-04-21T16:46:00-04:00

For nearly 50 years, chemical engineer and inventor Mária Telkes applied her prodigious intellect to harnessing the power of the sun. She designed and built the world’s first successfully solar-heated modern residence and identified a promising new chemical that, for the first time, could store solar heat like a battery. And yet, along the way, she was undercut and thwarted by her boss and colleagues — all men — at MIT.

The Hungarian-born scientist developed more than 20 patents in her lifetime and aided Eleanor Raymond on the development of the Dover Sun House in 1948.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by American Experience (@americanexperiencepbs)

"[She] knew you can’t just wait for society to be ready. You need to sell them on this idea," historian Sara Shreve-Price says in the documentary. "You need to convince them that this is the time for the idea. If we want the sustainable future, we don't just need the technology, we need to want the technology."

Director Amanda Pollak's recent Q&A about the film with Architect magazine can be found here.

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 ...

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...

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...

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:

Watch (an animated) Frank Lloyd Wright talk about arrogance in this new short

2016-02-16T13:50:00-05:00

Frank Lloyd Wright stars in the newest episode of "The Experimenters", a mini interview series by Blank on Blank that gives a glimpse into the minds of iconic figures in science, technology, and innovation. Colorfully illustrated by animator Jennifer Yoo, this episode features snippets of an interview between Mike Wallace and a 90-year-old FLW in September 1957.

Blank on Blank found the interview in a collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin celebrating The Mike Wallace Interview, a show that ran in the '50s. Wright is as sharp as ever with his words as he talks about the timeless topics of success, arrogance, the Nature of architecture, and his role as an architect.

Watch the entire episode below. You can also find outtakes and more here.

Here's a previous Blank on Blank episode featuring Buckminster Fuller.

Frank Gehry and Maya Lin find their ancestral roots on PBS

2016-02-05T12:04:00-05:00

Frank Gehry and Maya Lin join the ranks of those who have explored the history of their ancestors via the PBS show "Finding Your Roots." The show, which is in its third season, has attracted a passionate live-tweeting audience, one of whom wryly noted that "I did not know that Maya Lin's teacher gave her a B on her design for the Vietnam war memorial." In the preview clip below, Gehry grapples with the reality of the holocaust during WWII, both in his own family and for humanity at large:

Pedro E. Guerrero spotlighted in latest episode of PBS' "American Masters", premiering Sept. 18

2015-09-18T09:32:00-04:00

Photographers who shoot the work of famous artists are rarely celebrated in their own right...'Pedro E. Guerrero: A Photographer’s Journey'...tracks the career of Pedro E. Guerrero (1917-2012), a Mexican American photographer from Mesa, Arizona, who, at age 22, got his first job taking photos for Wright during the construction of his Taliesin West complex...

Check out a preview of the documentary below.

More about architectural photography on Archinect:

Pedro Guerrero, FLW's photographer, Dies at 95

Pedro E. Guerrero: Frank Lloyd Wright's photographer

Hélène Binet celebrates first U.S. exhibit at WUHO with the 2015 Julius Shulman Institute Photography Award

Uncle Wolfgang

"Building Images" exhibition revives the power of imagery in architecture

How Iwan Baan Became the Most Wanted Photographer in Architecture

PBS' premiere of "Time Scanners" brings 3D digital preservation technology to a wider audience

2014-07-01T13:53:00-04:00

PBS taps into the growing presence of 3D digital preservation on their new show, Time Scanners, which will premiere its first episode tonight at 8 p.m. ET. The three-part series will peruse the ancient iconic sites of the Egyptian Pyramids, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, and the city of Petra in Jordan through the use of 3D laser-scanning technology.

Hosted by Dallas Campbell, each episode will follow Steve Burrows — the notable structural engineer known for working on the Bird's Nest Stadium at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics — and his team of investigators as they discover each landmark's physical and forensic history and scientific secrets.

Below are summaries of each episode:

July 1, Egyptian Pyramids: "The team travels to Egypt to scan the pyramids to find out how the necropoles evolved from simple mud-brick structures to the most impressive buildings in the ancient world. They use their laser technology to scan Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara, Meidum’s collapsed pyramid, the m...

PBS's "UNUSUAL SPACES" profiles Berlin-Tempelhof Airport, "The Mother of All Airports"

2014-03-11T17:27:00-04:00

In the center of the sprawling metropolis of Germany's capital, Berlin-Tempelhof Airport stands as both a monument to a darker era in Germany's past and a link to its future.

Built on an airfield where the Wright Brothers once demonstrated their Flyer before a captive European audience, Tempelhof Airport was conceived by the leaders of the Third Reich as a architectural testament to the boundless ambition of German supremacy. Captured by the Soviet Army in 1945 before it could be completed, turned over to American forces following the Conference at Yalta, and then serving as West Berlin's lifeline to the free world during the Cold War, the airport was a central set piece in 20th century history.

After decades of dwindling postwar commercial operation following the construction of other regional airports, a referendum for its closure was narrowly approved in the mid-2000s. Since its official closure in 2008, however, a dramatic new vision for the airport has emerged...

"Cool Spaces!" - coming to national public tv this Fall

2013-03-22T14:17:00-04:00

Cool Spaces! is a primetime television series that will profile the most provocative architecture of the 21st century. Hosted by architect Stephen Chung, each hour show focuses on public spaces across the US and Canada, conceived by daring architects who push the boundaries of contemporary architectural design, materials and process. Produced for Public Television, Cool Spaces! offers viewers an experience of these public spaces as never before.

Stephen Chung, architect and host of the tv show, tells Archinect, "We are trying to show non-architects that architecture is a pretty cool subject- and if they just give us a chance and take a look- they might agree."

PBS architecture show to explore story behind Gehry-designed Ruvo clinic

2012-12-20T12:56:00-05:00

[...] the Gehry story is about how Ruvo lost his father to Alzheimer's and wanted to bring a world-class architect to Las Vegas … if he could attract Gehry, maybe then he gets the Cleveland Clinic. Let’s go after the best architect and then the best clinic.

10 Buildings that Changed America

2012-05-10T18:25:00-04:00

A new TV and web production coming to PBS in 2013 about ten influential American buildings that changed the way we live, work, and play.