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- DirectorChristoph SchaubMichael SchindhelmStarsPierre De MeuronJacques HerzogUli SiggSuperstar architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron must negotiate between two cultures, two architectural traditions, and two political systems to build the new National Stadium for the Olympics in Beijing. Bird's Nest, available exclusively via Amazon Unbox.
- DirectorHiroshi TeshigaharaStarsIsidro Puig BoadaAntoni GaudíSeiji MiyaguchiThe work of Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí, as seen by Japanese New Wave director Hiroshi Teshigahara.
- DirectorJesper WachtmeisterStarsPeter CookJacque FrescoBuckminster FullerThis film takes the viewer on a journey through possible and impossible architecture projects - from the beginning of the 20th century to today. From concrete illusions of grandeur to round grass covered dwellings under ground. The viewer will meet world famous architects and visionaries like Buckminster Fuller and Le Corbusier and experience their visions and ideas of how to build us a better world. With the help of animations unrealized projects come to life in this documentary that shows astounding visions of a world - as it could have been. Since the end of the 19th century industrialized man has been confronted with new kinds of possibilities and problems, all of which in one way or another are the consequences of a storm of technological progress. Amidst the smoke and wars, architects and artists saw early on that this was a world full of possibilities, with plenty of room for visionary ideas. They were motivated and driven by the problems of the day, be it a shortage of housing, urban decay or pollution. Their visions brought changes in our ways of living and dwelling that challenged our concepts of the good, the true and the beautiful. In this documentary we encounter the Anthroposophist head quarters in Switzerland, the functionalist cities of Le Corbusier and Archigram's projects where pop-art meets architecture. We also meet the self-taught inventor Buckminster Fuller and his light weight constructions, and Antti Lovag - the protector of round houses. Also we visit Habitat 67 - a building conceived from LEGO, Superstudio and their world without objects, Paolo Soleri's crystal like cities in the desert, and ecological housing under ground. Great Expectations is a film about architecture projects and visions which have brought changes in our ways of living and dwelling that challenged our concepts of the good, the true and the beautiful.
- DirectorMurray GrigorStarsSean ConneryKarol Lautner PetersonFrank GehryRenowned architectural filmmaker Murray Grigor explores John Lautner's dramatic spaces with choreographed camera moves, as Lautner himself provides the commentary, speaking with insight and wit in recordings culled from archival sources.
- DirectorJesper WachtmeisterStarsTadao AndôSverre FehnKristian GullichsenKOCHUU is a visually stunning film about modern Japanese architecture, its roots in the Japanese tradition, and its impact on the Nordic building tradition. Winding its way through visions of the future and traditional concepts, nature and concrete, gardens and high-tech spaces, the film explains how contemporary Japanese architects strive to unite the ways of modern man with the old philosophies in astounding constructions. KOCHUU, which translates as "in the jar," refers to the Japanese tradition of constructing small, enclosed physical spaces, which create the impression of a separate universe. The film illustrates key components of traditional Japanese architecture, such as reducing the distinction between outdoors and indoors, disrupting the symmetrical, building with wooden posts and beams rather than with walls, modular construction techniques, and its symbiotic relationship with water, light and nature. The film illustrates these concepts through remarkable views of the Imperial Katsura Palace, the Todai-Ji Temple, the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, the Sony Tower, numerous teahouses and gardens (see link below for complete list), as well as examples of the cross-fertilization evidenced in buildings throughout Scandinavia, and shows how 'invisible' Japanese traditions are evident even in modern, high-tech buildings. KOCHUU also features interviews with some of Japan's leading architects as well as Scandinavian contemporaries including Pritzker Prize winners Tadao Ando and Sverre Fehn, Toyo Ito, Kazuo Shinohara, Kristian Gullichsen and Juhani Pallasmaa (see link below for complete list and bios). KOCHUU is a compelling illustration of how the aesthetics of Japanese architecture and design are expressed through simple means, and also shows that the best Japanese architecture, wherever it appears, expresses spiritual qualities that enrich human life.
- DirectorThom AndersenStarsEncke KingBen AlexanderJim BackusA documentary on how Los Angeles has been used and depicted in the movies.
- DirectorMark Richard SmithStarsMadolyn Smith OsborneMark Richard SmithDocumentary about the revolutionary and brilliant Chicago architect Louis Sullivan (1856-1924); his rapid rise to fame, tragic decline, and the ultimate triumph of his creative spirit.
- DirectorPatrick DemersJoseph HillelREGULAR OR SUPER is a fascinating and informative introduction to the work of Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), one of the 20th century's most influential architects, and a thought-provoking demonstration of the social and artistic contributions that architecture at its best can make to our urban environments.
- DirectorTomas KoolhaasStarsRem KoolhaasA documentary about legendary architect and master provocateur Rem Koolhaas.
- DirectorHeinz EmigholzStarsChristian ReinerRudolph Schindler built many houses across Southern California. Today, we ask what the houses say about the architect.
- DirectorBenjamin MurrayAlysa NahmiasStarsVittorio GarattiRoberto GottardiRicardo PorroCuba's ambitious National Art Schools project, designed by three young artists in the wake of Castro's Revolution, is neglected, nearly forgotten, then ultimately rediscovered as a visionary architectural masterpiece.
- DirectorJudith McBrienFew individuals have had more impact on the American city than architect and planner Daniel Hudson Burnham. In the midst of late nineteenth century urban disorder, Burnham offered a powerful vision of what a civilized American city could look like that provided a compelling framework for Americans to make sense of the world around them. He built some of the first skyscrapers in the world, directed construction of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition that inspired the City Beautiful Movement, and created urban plans for San Francisco, Washington, DC, Chicago, Cleveland and Manila all before the profession of urban planning existed. In fact, some say that he invented it. His work sought to reconcile things often thought opposite: the practical and the ideal, business and art, and capitalism and democracy. At the center of it all was the idea of a vibrant urban community.
- DirectorKathy BrewRoberto GuerraStarsPaola AntonelliBarry BergdollMichael BierutA documentary on two of the world's most influential designers -- Lella and Massimo Vignelli.
- DirectorMichael BlackwoodStarsPeter EisenmanFrank GehryMichael GravesWhile visiting four architectural practices in 1982, we discuss the postmodernist movement through its meaning and motives. Beyond Utopia: Changing Attitudes in American Architecture features Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Frank Gehry, Michael Graves and Peter Eisenman, all of whom are protégés of Philip Johnson. Guided by their mentor, these innovators rejected the European modernism of Mies and Corbusier in search of alternative directions. The architects show and discuss their buildings of the time both in their personal offices and on location.
- DirectorMichael BlackwoodStarsKenneth FramptonPeter ZumthorArchitect Peter Zumthor lives and works in the remote village of Haldenstein in the Swiss Canton of Graubünden where he can keep the politics of architecture at a comfortable distance as he enjoys status and praise for his unique modernist buildings. In "The Practice of Architecture", critic Kenneth Frampton visits Zumthor at his studio where the two are surrounded by models, designs and plans for current and future projects throughout Europe and the United States. Frampton questions the renowned architecture on the motives and methods behind some of his most famous works, including his Zinc-Mine-Museum in Norway and the highly acclaimed Therme Vals, a stunning hotel and spa built over the thermal springs in Graubünden. While walking us through his career, Zumthor discusses his penchant for minimalism, the importance of landscape, light and material, and the architectural theory behind his stunningly precise style.
- DirectorMichael BlackwoodStarsSteven HollLebbeus WoodsArchitects Lebbeus Woods and Steven Holl have been friends for many years, brought together by their creativity, philosophy and visionary architectural pursuits. While both are theorists, Woods finds himself preoccupied with bold, speculative designs that push back against notions of time and space, not waiting or searching for any kind of commissions but instead forming his own aesthetical world through the freedom of drawing. This approach stands in direct contrast with Holl's body of work, which consists of many physical buildings both in the United States and abroad. This known order between the two architects has recently been interrupted by Holl commissioning Woods to design a four-story pavilion for his large-scale multi complex Sliced Porosity Block in Chengdu, China. Getting together at Woods' workspace in downtown Manhattan, the longtime friends recall their careers while discussing the current project and their mutual architectural practices.
- DirectorMichael BlackwoodStarsMagda ClaesgesSiegfried GohrChristian A.J. KleinA visit to the studio of Ernst Wilhelm Nay, a remarkable, if somewhat solitary German artist, who established his status at age 30, just before the advent of the Nazi takeover. Nay belonged to the persecuted generation of German artists who, just as their work began to blossom, were forced out by Hitler's art dictatorship. Labeling the art "decadent", the Hitler regime called for the removal of Nay's paintings from museum collections and the artist was banned from showcasing his new work. After the end of World War II, Nay returned to painting and worked tirelessly to make up for lost time, producing new pieces year after year and quickly becoming one of Germany's leading painters. Ernst Wilhelm Nay died in 1968 at the age of 65 yet his studio, still intact, offers a retrospective of his work starting from the 1920s. His wife, Elisabeth Nay walks us through the studio, offering insights into her husband's process and creative intent.
- DirectorMichael BlackwoodStarsDavid ChipperfieldWhen the Tuscan city of Pisa commissioned David Chipperfield to create a master plan that would bring new vitality to this historic spot on the Arno, an exhibition of selected works produced by him in the last 25 years was also invited. "David Chipperfield: Form Matters" documents the architect as he leads the way through his models, drawings and photographs, explaining his designs in the process. Chipperfield's vast array of international work spans over Europe, China, Japan, the United States and Mexico and as he guides us through his career Chipperfield offers a detailed accounts of his creative direction at every stop.
- DirectorMichael BlackwoodStarsAndrea ZittelMonika SosnowskaTheodora VischerAn exhibition at Schaulager in Basel in 2008, curated by Theodora Vischer, filmed with the participation of the artists and the curator. The exhibition 1:1 was dedicated to the artists Monika Sosnowska and Andrea Zittel. The exhibition title, 1:1, refers on one hand to the resulting "parallel realities" and on the other to the actual scale of certain works by Sosnowska and Zittel.
- DirectorMichael BlackwoodStarsBeth GillJohn JasperseRalph LemonApart from the work itself, it is the fragile, ephemeral quality of dance that creates a bond of intimacy between a performer and the viewer. Seven choreographers work tirelessly to both question and embrace their chosen form, producing work that celebrates the strange, startling and poetic beauty of dance and performance. Curated by Gia Kourlas. Narrated by the choreographers.
- DirectorMichael BlackwoodStarsCecil BalmondSanford KwinterSarah Herda"Cecil Balmond: Visionary Engineer and Architect" is a compelling documentation of a unique thinker and practitioner at the height of his architectural career. Through his conversation with architecture theorist and critic, Sanford Kwinter, Balmond reveals his vision and talent while the two tour his retrospective exhibition at the Graham Foundation in Chicago. Since the early 1980s Balmond has collaborated with many of today's important contemporary architects such as Toyo Ito, Rem Koolhaas and Daniel Libeskind. With his astounding aesthetic algorithms, Balmond has introduced innovative structural concepts that have resulted in some of the most challenging buildings in the canon of contemporary architecture.
- DirectorMichael BlackwoodStarsStephanie BarronSabine EckmannDuring the Cold War (1949-89) in both Germanys, the creation of art, its reception, and its theorization were closely linked to the respective political systems: the Western liberal democracy of the Federal Republic of German (FRG) and the Eastern communist dictatorship of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In reaction against the legacy of Nazism, both Germanys revived pre-World War II German artistic traditions. This exhibition examines the internalization of historic German art, the increasing importance of popular and mass culture, the fashioning of two distinct national identities, and the engagement with Germany 's political and artistic past. By tracing the political, cultural, and theoretical discourses in both German art worlds, the exhibition shows the role of conventional art, new media, new art forms, popular culture, and particular domestic and international contemporary art exhibitions that played a role in the establishment of German art in the postwar era. We accompany Stephanie Barron, curator of the exhibition, and Sabine Eckmann, curator of the exhibition catalog on a walk-through of this critical re-consideration of German post-WWII art. They retrace the curatorial reasoning for the selection of works by artists which would best reflect the key social and political developments on both sides of the iron curtain during those 4 decades.
- DirectorMichael BlackwoodStarsPeter GalassiJeff WallJeff Wall is one of the most important and influential photographers working today. His work played a key role in establishing photography as a contemporary art form. Jeff Wall describes his recent work as "near documentary," a plausible account or a report on real or imagined encounters. Wall usually spends weeks painstakingly recreating these encounters and taking many pictures, from which he selects his final image in a critical process. His photographs are mainly displayed as backlit Cibachrome transparencies. In an interview with Sheena Wagstaff, Chief Curator at the Tate Modern, he said: Evaluation of quality is the core of the pleasure of the experience of art; the simultaneous pleasure of enjoying something intensely and of recognizing that it is a good work. I always judge my picture - daily, hourly, all the time. Even though it's disappointing to have to say "that one is not good", or "not as good as that one", it is still a pleasure to go through that process and experience a work afresh. Nothing has been as destructive to the condition of art as the idea that qualitative judgment is unimportant, and that art is important for cultural reasons. Art can only be important if it is good, because if it is good, it pleases us in ways we don't anticipate and don't understand, and that pleasure means something to us even if we can't specify what, exactly.
- DirectorMichael BlackwoodStarsJon BirdHans HaackeHans Haacke is a key figure in contemporary art whose work intersects with conceptual, pop, minimal and land art. The artist is particularly known for his research into the hidden economies and politics of the art world and the repressed histories of places and peoples. Haacke's strong political, cultural and social concerns are reflected in his installations, texts and sculptures. His works have often caused considerable controversies. Haacke visits his retrospectives taking place simultaneously in Berlin and Hamburg with art historian Jon Bird. The work in these long awaited, non-chronologically arranged exhibitions reveals Haacke's strong convictions and desire for justice for all. "All art is political" is his credo.