Archinect - News

Celebrate John Portman's 100th birthday with an exclusive film screening

2024-12-04T14:07:00-05:00

Today, December 4th, would have been the 100th birthday of architect and developer John Portman. For fans of the hotel atrium grandmaster who died in 2017 at 93, Chicago-based MAS Context has arranged a digital screening of John Portman: A Life of Building, a film directed by Ben Loeterman.

"The film captures Portman’s approach in an intimate portrait that, by turn, assesses and appreciates Portman’s work," their site explains. "Dramatic time-lapse footage shows off Portman’s buildings at their best—often in moving sunlight that washes over his facades and spaces."

The screening is available here until December 31st.

Want even more Portman birthday exclusives? Check out the photo essay Capturing the Feeling of John Portman photographer and filmmaker Phil Donohue created for MAS Context.

And if you've got $40 million burning a hole in your pocket, consider splurging on Portman's sn...

Floating house from Pixar’s ‘Up’ is now available to rent on Airbnb

2024-05-11T08:00:00-04:00

Airbnb has added a replica of the floating house from the popular 2009 Pixar film Up and other unique pop culture-inspired stays to its inventory. The experience is part of Airbnb's new Icons line of vacation rentals, which CEO Brian Chesky recently unveiled to the public in Los Angeles.

Image courtesy Airbnb

The sure-to-be popular Up home will be located in Abiquiu, New Mexico, and, thanks to a crane, is intended to appear as though it were floating. An Airbnb spokesperson told KRQE News 13: “Our community’s safety is incredibly important to us, so guests will not be inside the house while it is lifted. All guests will remain 100 ft away from the house while the house is lifted. The house will not exceed the height of 50 ft designated by engineering and crane operators as safe for lifting.”

Image courtesy Airbnb

Other Icons stays include a replica of Shrek’s home in the Scottish Highlands, Christina Aguilera's Las Vegas mansion, and the three-bedroom style house in Minneapolis made ...

Film and storytelling feature in KPF's latest New York job opportunity

2023-09-13T14:31:00-04:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Facilities Accessibility planner at Yale University, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an opportunity on Archinect Jobs for a Junior Video Editor-Producer at KPF.

The role, based in New York, calls for an individual who will “assist and support the creation of videos, from production to post-production, with the aim of telling the stories of the projects, process, and people of KPF.” The position is open to recent graduates, or those with 1–2 years of experience in a relevant field.

Why the role interests us

The latest role at KPF offers us the opportunity to reflect on Archinect’s recent coverage of the intersection between video, film, and architecture. In April, we took a closer look at a stunning Nordic hotel that played a prominent role in an episode of the hit HBO series Succession. In the ...

Inside the stunning Nordic hotel from Succession’s latest episode

2023-04-27T08:01:00-04:00

As the hit HBO series Succession reaches the midpoint of its final season, viewers of episode five’s Norwegian negotiations were treated to an architectural backdrop worthy of the show’s millions-strong audience. The Nordic eco-resort featured in the episode is in fact a seasoned pro in the film world, having previously been used as a prominent location in Alex Garland’s 2014 sci-fi thriller Ex Machina.

Still image from Succession, Series 4, Episode 5. Image credit: HBO

The building in question is the Juvet Landscape Hotel, which sits between the UNESCO world heritage Geiranger Fjord and the dramatic road and viewing point Trollstigen on the Nordic coast. Designed by Jensen & Skovdin Architects and completed in 2010, the 24-bed hotel is spread across seven minimalistic landscape rooms, two smaller ‘bird houses,’ and a four-bed ‘Skrivarstua’ or ‘Writer’s Lodge.’ Along a river bank, the hotel also features a bathhouse ...

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...

A futuristic spa hosts Joshua A. Dawson’s latest cautionary tale on climate change

2023-03-16T13:19:00-04:00

Designer and director Joshua A. Dawson has published his latest short film which strikes a cautionary note on the confluences of climate change, architecture, and capitalism. Titled Spa Sybarite, the three-minute-long film is set in a futuristic wellness spa in which users are offered treatments in response to the planet’s degrading environmental conditions.

Dawson’s cautionary film presents a commentary on how the climate crisis "provides a perfect excuse to make every business a climate business." Far from science fiction, the treatments offered in the film’s spa are familiar to today’s industry, including bathing complexes, IV therapy, nutrition-specific hydroponic systems, and Immersive virtual reality caves.

“Wellness is a multi-trillion-dollar industry,” Dawson told The New York Times in a recent article on his work and influences, “and it’s only a matter of time before someone takes the obvious opportunity to market wellness as the solution to climate-based illness, the bigg...

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 ...

AIA announces 2022 Film Challenge winners

2022-11-04T15:47:00-04:00

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has just announced its 2022 AIA Film Challenge winners.

Grand Prize, Runner Up, and Third Place winners were selected from a field of 32 qualified entries for the competition, which awards short 1:30 to 3-minute documentary films that “demonstrate how architects work with residents and civic leaders to design sustainable and equitable communities.”

This year’s contest was judged by 2021–2022 NOMA president Jason Pugh, University of Illinois at Chicago professor and associate dean Stewart Hicks, and three others. A special People’s Choice winner was also selected via an online public vote. That honor went to a film from Boston-based Darguin Fortuna, who examined the restrictive barriers towards entering the architectural profession and the work Flow Design Inc. is doing to counteract the resulting homogeneity through education. The other three films reflected this cause-oriented focus, furthering the organization’s mission with the latest ed...

Is Tim Burton's Beetlejuice the best Halloween movie for design students to watch?

2022-10-29T09:00:00-04:00

Every season has its own set of iconic movies, and within that set, there are those that stick out for their portrayal and elevation of architectural issues. Tim Burton’s 1988 classic, Beetlejuice, is perhaps the fall’s best example — an ever-trendy classic Halloween tale that showcases and offers some critique of the period’s salient design trends. Even the scale model of the town has some architectural qualities, and its central star — a shopworn Victorian-style home — has become an inspiration to aspiring designers around the world.

The conceit of Beetlejuice has essential elements that design students would be well-served to evaluate. Two families fighting for the creative control of a structure with radically different agendas. Its conflict is based on a disagreement about preferences in residential architecture: The “good, sturdy country craftsmanship” of a rural Victorian run up against a vacuous amalgam of 80s high design.

Opening title sequence from the film. Image courtes...

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.

The imposing Bertrand Goldberg-designed Marina City Towers star in Jordan Peele's 'spiritual' Candyman remake

2021-11-04T19:22:00-04:00

The new film, co-written and produced by Jordan Peele and directed by Nia DaCosta, needed a backdrop for the home of one of the characters (played by Rebecca Spence). Production designer Cara Brower knew the perfect place where a design-obsessed art critic would live: the modernist masterpiece that is Marina City on the Chicago River.

Like the original, the movie is set in the notorious Cabrini-Green housing project that has become synonymous with both the city’s South Side and the inhumane forms of low-income housing that dominated the era. Candyman creator Clive Barker said he selected Chicago for the adaptation in part because of his interest in disparate architecture as a symbol of inequality. Director Jordan Peele was able to recreate the demolished structures through a series of 3D replicas created by an Australian VFX studio called Rising Sun Pictures.

Peele picked Bertrand Goldberg's 1960s residential towers in a possible homage to the blaxploitation period classic Three the Hard Way (1974). The new film features a biting critique of commercial art galleries’ long-established role in gentrification as well as a few nice wide-angle shots of Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) and some of The Loop’s more important architectural landmarks.

Wes Anderson-inspired short film explores Singapore's diverse built environment

2021-10-26T18:07:00-04:00

A short film by architectural photographer and filmmaker Kevin Siyuan explores the built environment of Singapore through the unique style and lens of Wes Anderson.

Titled “A Wes Anderson-ish Singapore,” the film is a culmination of a year of exploration around the Asian city-state. Made with zero budget, the film focuses on the diverse architecture, urban planning, places, and people of a post-pandemic Singapore. Iconic structures, such as the Apple Marina Bay Sands, Singapore Changi Airport, and Golden Mile Complex, along with the country’s green spaces and street art are displayed in the peculiar cinematographic style and direction of Wes Anderson films.

As described by Siyuan in the video’s description: “The scenes were framed using mostly flattened symmetrical perspective with focus on architecture but contextualized and told with elements that are uniquely Singapore.”

Signature Wes Anderson films such as “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “The Life Aquatic by Steve Zissou,” “Moonri...

The biggest splash: Renzo Piano’s masterwork Academy Museum opens as one of Los Angeles’ newest landmarks

2021-09-29T14:57:00-04:00

When it finally opens on Thursday, the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will do so in a similar vein to so many of this year’s star-studded fall releases. The $484 million museum’s first act will be as a barometer for an industry looking once again to pack theaters and captivate audiences as the tumult of the covid era gives way to Hollywood entrances and red carpet debuts.

Photo by Joshua White, JWPictures/© Academy Museum Foundation

No museum has been so anticipated in the recent history of the city. None in North America have ever been so dedicated to film culture and to moviemaking as this dazzling new magnum opus. It is precisely the vehicle the industry needs to promote itself as it emerges from a fraught decade and one that looks inevitably to the future using the past as prologue and film as a lens through which we experience ourselves and the world.

Renzo Piano’s blockbuster new cinematic arts shrine expands from an old Streamline Moderne department store at the corner...

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...

Lee Bey reminds us an architecture critic can appear in many forms, even one of a famed film critic

2021-04-05T15:41:00-04:00

What defines an architecture critic? These past few months, the discourse surrounding what an architecture critic is, who they have been, and why this role needs to be re-evaluated has circulated across several publications and architecture circles. While several critics come to mind, both past and present, who exemplify the very best of what this role presents for the industry, there are a few individuals outside of the profession that architecture criticism might have needed.

WBEZ Chicago published Lee Bey's piece "Roger Ebert: An architecture critic, too" back in 2013. Throughout the article, Bey recounts his past conversations and memories with the famed film critic. Ebert's consistency and dedication to the "craft of criticism" were admired by many. Even during his final years, when illness befell him and eventually leading to his passing in 2013, Bey reminds us of Ebert's writing and architecture involvement. "He sounded the alarm against civic inattention, mercantile forces o...

Construction completes on Renzo Piano's long-awaited Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in LA

2021-03-10T20:42:00-05:00

Archinect's last report of the highly anticipated Academy Museum of Motion Pictures reported the Museum's planned opening and potential delay due to Covid-19 concerns. Today, The Academy Museum announces its inaugural programming and the official public opening, which will occur on September 30, 2021. To kick start its public debut, the Museum kicks off with its virtual programs in April.

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Exterior Rendering by Renzo Piano Building Workshop

Set to be "the largest institution in the United States devoted to the arts, sciences, and artists of moviemaking," the Museum will be another architectural feat to add to the city. With Renzo Piano and his team at the helm of the 300,000 square-foot museum campus, the general public was able to keep tabs on its progression over the years, especially with its giant spherical-shaped auditorium.

Featured on Archinect: Academy of Motion Pictures releases new construction photos of Renzo Piano-designed museum Image b...

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...

New streaming platform to focus exclusively on architecture and design content

2020-07-21T18:01:00-04:00

Australian actor-producer and entrepreneur Dustin Clare is launching Shelter, a new streaming platform for architecture enthusiasts. The platform is targeting a global audience and will carry a mixture of films, TV shows as well as its own originals.

Shelter's "Inspired Architecture" series will include six fifteen-minute episodes that explore six Australian structures including JR's Hut in Gundagai, Permanent Camping in Mudgee, and Hart House at Great Mackerel Beach. The series explores the narrative of the buildings and their creators, accompanied by interviews with the architects and their clients.

Curated from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, United States and South America, Shelter will feature more than 200 hours of content upon launch, with new content to be added every month. The service will launch with the following:

Festival favorite Tadao Ando: From Emptiness to Infinity (2013) pays homage to one of the world’s most renowned architects: the Japanese ‘Master of Minimalism’ Tadao Ando. The film introduces viewers to his famous buildings and offers an exclusive look into his work process, inspiration and motivations.
Winner of Best Documentary at the Atlas Awards International Film Festiva...

Virtual Architecture Events this week include a lecture, historical tours, film screenings, and a panel on pay equality

2020-05-20T09:12:00-04:00

Featured virtual event happenings today through Friday, from Archinect's Virtual Event Guide, are hosted by UCLA, the Chicago Architecture Center, ADFF, CCA, and RISD.

Are you hosting a virtual lecture? Presentation? Tour? Interview? Happy Hour? Submit it for consideration by clicking here.

Are you an expert in an arena that's especially important right now? Let us know if you would like to work with Archinect to host an online event.

Virtual Lecture with Tei Carpenter
Wednesday, May 20, 2020 | 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM PDT
Join UCLA Architecture and Urban Design for a virtual lecture with Tei Carpenter, Founder of Agency-Agency, Assistant Professor at University of Toronto, and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP. Carpenter’s design and research work has been supported by a number of international organizations including the New York State Council on the Arts and BMW Mini.
Click here to attend and/or register

CAC Live: A Tale of Two Fairs
Wednesday, May 20, 2020 | 7:00 PM – 8:00 P...

Watch Steven Holl Architects’ new Kennedy Center addition come to life

2020-04-17T16:14:00-04:00

Steven Holl Architects has unveiled a new video highlighting the firm’s designs for a new wing that has been added to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

The REACH at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts from Steven Holl Architects on Vimeo.

The video, embedded above, highlights the 72,000-square-foot building and the set of open studios, rehearsal and performance spaces, and dedicated arts learning spaces included in the project, as well as the design’s considered layout and site configuration. The singular addition is situation below an occupiable roof marked by three pavilions.

The project, which features eye-catching “crinkle concrete” interior finishes that help absorb sound, debuted to the public in 2019.

The video was developed with the help of Spirit of Space, a group that has produced architectural videos for firms that include Studio Gang, SHoP, SOM, Coop Himmelb(l)au, and others.

...

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...

A look at some of the SCI-Arc Fiction and Entertainment grads reshaping the entertainment industry

2020-01-13T15:06:00-05:00

This post is brought to you by Southern California Institute of Architecture

Deeply embedded in the entertainment industry of Los Angeles, SCI-Arc’s postgraduate Master of Science program in Fiction and Entertainment has emerged as the place to tell new kinds of stories about the alternative realities of the 21st century. Now in its fourth year, the program has been developing the role of the architect as visual storyteller, the architect as world builder, and the architect as director.

Originally conceived by program coordinator Liam Young as a way to bring students into contact with work world-renowned professionals in the realms of film, fiction, animation, games, and documentary filmmaking in order to build new forms of architectural practice, Fiction and Entertainment was a natural fit for SCI-Arc EDGE Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture.

Student work echoes far beyond the traditional reach o...

Remembering Syd Mead and his futuristic visions of the built environment

2020-01-03T14:04:00-05:00

Revered as a legend in the field of science-fiction, the American industrial designer Syd Mead has given the world memorable and inspiring designs of what the future could be. Recognized for his contributions on the silver screen, he produced conceptual art for blockbuster Hollywood films like Tron, Alien, Star Trek, Short Circuit, and Blade Runner, to name a few. After graduating from Art Center College of Design, Mead started his career as an automobile illustrator for the Ford Motor Company in 1959. He eventually became a sought after illustrator creating architectural renderings and drawings for clients all over the world.

Beyond his numerous accolades and unforgettable artwork inspiring retro-futurists and science-fiction enthusiasts alike, what strikes me the most is Mead's commitment to transforming possibilities of the built environment. According to Mead, in a 2008 i...

'Lair' book explores the radical homes and hideouts of movie villains

2019-11-01T12:58:00-04:00

From Atlantis in The Spy Who Loved Me to Nathan Bateman's ultra-modern abode in Ex Machina, big-screen villains tend to live in architectural splendor. The villain’s lair, as popularized in many of our favorite movies, is much more than where the megalomaniac goes to get some rest. Instead, the homes of the villains are places where evil is plotted and where, often, the hero is tested...

By Miami-based architect Chad Oppenheim and editor Andrea Gollin, the new publication explores the architectural designs from fifteen films through architectural illustrations and renderings, photographs, essays, film analyses, and interviews. Some of the films featured include Dr. Strangelove, The Incredibles, Blade Runner 2049, and You only Live Twice. It will be released on November 5th.

ArchiPaper: An animated story about architecture

2019-09-18T13:00:00-04:00

Model building has always been at the core of what we do as architects. What happens when that age-old practice is embraced and made into a film? Polish architect and filmmaker, Rafał Barnaś has done just that.

Check out the trailer for his new film ArchiPaper below:

Description from the filmmaker:

ArchiPaper. A surrealist story about architecture.
The architect Rafał Barnaś would like to present a trailer of his original project. ArchiPaper is a non-commercial, experimental, short animated film that tells a story about architecture in an unconventional way. The basis and starting point for this work was a physical model of a house designed by BXB Studio. The model was photographed and transformed into an image that teems with life, creating a leisurely-paced, surrealist story immersed in an abstract world, built solely out of paper elements. Operating with atypical means of expression and building a stylistically and compositionally coherent film was quite a challenge. ArchiPaper ...

Alexandra Lange discusses the film "Where'd You Go, Bernadette" and what it means for women in architecture

2019-08-19T08:00:00-04:00

I want this to be me and my friends, most of us in our mid-40s, and many of us looking around, now that our kids are tweens, and thinking, Hmmmmm, am I doing what I want? Am I saying what I need to say? The new midlife crisis is a career crisis, not a marital crisis.

It is rare for individuals in creative fields to be accurately portrayed in film, especially women. With the release of the film adaptation of Maria Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Curbed architecture critic, Alexandra Lange, writes to express her anticipation for the film's portrayal of the lead character, Bernadette Fox. According to Lange, as a mother, wife, architect, and woman, this character is someone many women in the profession can potentially empathize with. In her review, Lange shares what this fictional character provides for her and other female architects as well.

Lange explains, "Bernadette Fox was a wish fulfillment [...] Most women, most people, don't have a cheerleader waiting in the wings for us to get our shit together. We either mentor ourselves or, more often than not, our talent is absorbed by other people and other lives. We never get to be on a first-name basis with the world, the subject of a solo profile."

It's the details that make this film all to...

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.

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