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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
Boryana Ilieva is an architect and artist. For the past two years, she’s been engaged in a project, dubbed “Floor Plan Croissant”, in which she paints the house and apartments that serve as the settings for films. Employing watercolor as her medium, Ilieva has studied the architecture of... View full entry
The story of Mies van der Rohe and Edith Farnsworth—the namesake commissioner of the famous glass house—is rife with sex and scandal. According to the typical narrative, Farnsworth, a nephrologist of some acclaim, didn’t just want one of Mies’ buildings, but also the man himself. When... View full entry
While the architecture in real cities has sometimes become the jumping off point for imaginary structures in cinema (think: the Los Angeles of Blade Runner) the reverse seems to be happening in India, where a filmmaker is being asked to design real structures based on the imagined buildings that... View full entry
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... View full entry
“Every project is an adventure, is a passion,” states Jean Nouvel in a new documentary that follows the Pritzker Prize-winning architect as he travels around the world. The fifteen-minute film, titled Jean Nouvel: Reflections, includes reflections by Nouvel on the major achievements of his... View full entry
Tomas Koolhaas is a filmmaker in Los Angeles, whose most recent project, a documentary about his father Rem, recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival. REM follows its titular architect around the world, visiting his projects and investigating their human impact. Aware of his special... View full entry
Many films ― even great ones ― have used occupations as shorthand for personalities or ‘types.’ [...]
male movie-architects are assumed to personify the perfect romantic lead: they are “creative, but not as grubby as musicians; fiscally sturdy, but not as stodgy as bankers; dreamers with briefcases; visionaries of the tangible.” [...]
Narrative tensions emerge in the perceived misfit between the image — or stereotype — of a profession and the celluloid figure who embodies it.
— placesjournal.org
This hearty round-up sifts through the stereotypes and expectations of how Hollywood portrays our on-screen architects, against the backdrop of #OscarsSoWhite and a male (overwhelming) majority. Less about professional accuracy and more about personality types, the piece focuses on how these... View full entry
Perhaps no one is better situated to forge a behind-the-scenes look at Rem Koolhaas than his son, Tomas Koolhaas. The LA-based filmmaker just wrapped up 'REM', a documentary about his father as he travels the world and reflects on his work.Related: Listen to Tomas Koolhass talk about REM on... View full entry
Bunker Hill, an area of roughly five square blocks in downtown Los Angeles, holds a place in city lore similar to that of the water wars or the construction of Dodger Stadium: beginning in 1959, it was the subject of a massive urban-renewal project, in which “improvement” was generally defined by the people who stood to profit from it [...] subject of this short film by Keven McAlester, which compares what the same streets in downtown Los Angeles looked like in the nineteen-forties and today. — newyorker.com
Stills via YouTube.Related stories in the Archinect news:DTLA's Music Center Plaza will get a $30M remodel, its first since 1964Historic LA Times Building to be redevelopedLA's Donut Time, the LGBTQ landmark in “Tangerine”, is now permanently closed View full entry
Anyone who's seen the iPhone-shot feature Tangerine or cruised by the doughnut shop at night knows that Donut Time wasn't just another of Los Angeles' dozens of purveyors of sweet, glazed pastries. Much more significant than that, it had long served as a haven for sex workers — many of them transgender women — who make a living on the streets nearby.
"I didn't think it would ever go away. It's really sad," [Tangerine director Sean] Baker says. "I think the film caught an end to an era."
— LA Weekly
According to LAist, Donut Time's closure may be related to a massive mixed-use development proposed for that stretch along Santa Monica Boulevard, where (of course) gentrification is on the rise. It's not yet known if anything will replace Donut Time.More on Archinect:Stonewall Inn formally... View full entry
With the working title Utzon, The Man Behind the Opera House, the film will tell the story of Danish architect Jørn Utzon, who was just 38 years old and relatively unknown when he won the international competition to design an opera house on Sydney’s Bennelong Point in 1957...
The Sydney Opera House was completed by Australian architect Peter Hall – a handover which ostracised Hall from the architectural community, and which his family believe led to his ruin.
— The Guardian
With a screenplay by Oscar-nominated Petter Skavlan, the film promises to get into some thorny emotional terrain. As producer Jan Marnell explains, “We have a world wonder. We have its creator – who wasn’t allowed to see his dream fulfilled. We have creativity versus bureaucracy and... View full entry
The Los Angeles Business Journal reports in this week's issue that the filmmaker, Steven Slomkowski, sought to get out of the project after the suicide of Mark Stahl, one of three siblings who control the property, also renowned in architecture lore as Case Study Home #22. Slomkowski sued in 2014, alleging that the surviving siblings, Bruce and Shari Stahl, got cold feet over depictions of Mark and their late father, Buck. The Stahls countersued... — LA Observed
When it's not involved in documentary-driven legal feuds, the iconic Stahl House frequently serves as a backdrop for a variety of fictional films, including Atom Egoyan's "Where The Truth Lies," and "Galaxy Quest:"For more on the intersection between architecture and cinema:"The Dessau Bauhaus"... View full entry
Earlier this year, photographer Baker took us on an odyssey through two icons of Modernism in the UK by Wells Coates: London’s Isokon building and Brighton’s Embassy Court. Now he’s teamed up with director Alex Simpson to create a mini-documentary, The Legacy of Wells Coates.
The Isokon was once home to Soviet spies, Agatha Christie and Modernist émigrés including the founder of Bauhaus school, Walter Gropius.
— thespaces.com
Find more tales of form following function here:A 'hidden' Mies van der Rohe masterpiece receives funding for renovationA tall order? Wooden skyscraper could become Britain's second tallest buildingWorking Out of the Box: Jader Almeida"African Modernism: Architecture of Independence" showcases a... View full entry
