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Here's a heads-up for L.A.-based fans of Rudolph Schindler. Do not miss tonight’s premiere screening of Valentina Ganeva’s new documentary Schindler Space Architect at 7:30 p.m. in Beverly Hills. Ganeva recently spoke to KCRW about some of its insights, including the overlooked feminist... View full entry
According to Kyle Bergman, the founder and director of the Architecture and Design Film Festival, “Kids who grow up with architects as parents mostly fall into two groups. Some want to become architects and some want to run away, to get as far away from architecture as possible. But then there’s this middle ground, people who are intrigued by what their parents do but want to do their own thing.”
That third group is where the future documentarians come from, Bergman said.
— The New York Times
Christopher Hawthorne writes in preview for this month's Architecture and Design Film Festival in New York, where Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown's son Jim will premiere his gleaning biographical treatment Stardust: The Story of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. Nathaniel... View full entry
Unity Temple: Frank Lloyd Wright's Modern Masterpiece is a new film by Lauren Levine that is narrated by Brad Pitt. Streaming October 30th to November 15th, the documentary will look deeply into Wright's first public commission in the early 1900s and the efforts to restore it 100 years later. From... View full entry
German film director Wim Wenders is planning a new documentary covering the recent work of Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. Regarding the forthcoming release, Wenders tells the dpa news agency, "His work means a lot to me. I have been accompanying two of his arguably most important buildings from... View full entry
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... View full entry
Eric Saarinen, the son of Eero Saarinen, is working on a new documentary highlighting the work of his grandfather, noted Finnish-American architect Eliel Saarinen. The Detroit News reports that the documentary comes after Eric's work on a previous PBS special highlighting the legacy of his... View full entry
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.
— latimes.com
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... View full entry
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.
— citylab.com
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... View full entry
Like a miniature perfectionist city, the new Apple campus in Cupertino is made up of several different buildings: there's the familiar Norman Foster-designed "spaceship," as well as a massive parking garage that features gleaming solar panels atop the roof.This drone video reveals that very little... View full entry
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... View full entry
Rejecting self-serious notions in favor of playful, experimental, and bold architecture, Slovenian architects Sadar + Vuga have made a name themselves in the twenty-one years since they founded their practice.Sadar+Vuga’s Air Traffic Control Center (ATCC) in SloveniaOne of the few firms to... View full entry
How does Santiago Calatrava's Oculus encapsulate the complex history and significance of its site? In this brief video from filmmaker Jeff Durkin, Calatrava's elaborate transit hub canopy is sited in its aesthetic and social contexts via a series of carefully selected voice-over news clips and... View full entry
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,"... View full entry
Only one thing is certain now that Frank Gehry has undertaken the plan to revitalize the LA River: in the future, it will be different.Check out Archinect's extensive coverage of the LA River Redevelopment, including interviews with major players like Mia Lehrer via the Next Up series...This... View full entry
Daniel Libeskind loves the multi-faceted nature of New York City's inhabitants; the rich, the poor, the successful, and perhaps most amusingly, the failures who think they're successful. Although the architect doesn't really break any new conceptual ground in this short video from the Louisiana... View full entry