Sheats-Goldstein Residence, John Lautner, 1963.
Just before Architecture+Film took a break, we were asked by Shelter to choose ten titles for them to feature that month. Although that was a while ago, now that we're back it still seemed worth sharing the list, for anyone who's interested.
1. COAST MODERN (2012) A feature-length documentary which focuses on the more organic, nature-integrated style which proliferated amongst modernists of the American west coast, in the early to mid twentieth century. Contains more homes that I'd love to live in than any other film I've seen.
2. INFINITE SPACE: THE ARCHITECTURE OF JOHN LAUTNER (2009) A feature-length documentary which explores Lautner’s iconic Modernist structures.
3. LA CUPOLA (2016) This isnt a documentary, but rather an atmospheric visual exploration of a beautiful, enigmatic, and weather-ravaged structure: A concrete dome in Sardinia, commissioned by Michelangelo Antonioni and Monica Vitti (Director and star of L'avventura, respectively), who then separated before its completion. I'll share a longer, dedicated post on this short film soon.
4. THE PRUIT IGOE MYTH (2011) A thought-provoking documentary about the infamous St Louis Housing project. The residential tower blocks deteriorated rapidly from utopian plan to militant slum, as a result of systemic racism, suburban migration, and other social and political factors overlooked by their creators. The demolition, only 20 years after completion, was seen by many to represent the death of Modern Architecture.
This film is a worthwhile watch as a cultural and historical document, but also as a reminder of the long-term complexity of creating successful places, and the naivety (or arrogance) of believing they can be achieved by an architectural vision alone.
5. GRAY MATTERS (2014) This documentary offers a comprehensive look at the creative legacy of female Irish architect Eileen Gray, a pioneer of Modernism whose significant contributions to design have historically been overshadowed by those of more famous contemporaries such as Le Corbusier.
6. THE EXPERIMENTAL CITY (2017) An interesting and thought-provoking documentary about a large federally-funded project during the 1960′s and 70′s, to create a new city in which different sustainable technologies and ways of living could be tested. I've reviewed it in more depth here
CITY DREAMERS (2018). This documentary visits four trailblazing female architects, Phyllis Lambert, Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, Cornelia Oberlander and Denise Scott Brown. For most of their long professional careers, these women worked in an almost exclusively male domain. Structured around their personal anecdotes and recollections, the film looks at their important contributions to city making.
8. DO MORE WITH LESS (2017) A group of young Latin American architects look to change the way the profession interacts with society, learning through real-world projects, and looking for low-budget solutions in collaboration with local users, and local materials.
9. UNFINISHED SPACES (CUBAN ARCHITECTURE OF THE REVOLUTION) (2011) In 1961, a newly victorious Fidel Castro went golfing with Che Guevara, and decided to repurpose the picturesque course to build a cluster of national art schools.
This documentary presents the construction process which followed as a metaphor for the revolution itself. By the mid 60′s the organic and individualistic styles of the elected architects had lost favour, as mass produced Soviet-style construction methods became seen as more politically appropriate. The vast project stalled - incomplete, decaying, but partially occupied. 40 years later the architects were invited back to resurrect their vision.
10. PERMANENT CAMPING A short exploration of a building that's featured on this blog before, Casey Brown's elegantly simple shed, Mudgee, which sits on a remote and rugged site in rural Australia.
Note: This post isn't sponsored, and just so you know, Shelter is a paid film streaming service. I often share links to free services for architecture documentaries, but none have this particular list of films available.
