1. The Uptown
A vacant theater still has “screenings” of its own: apparitions that come to life on a curved screen without anyone to see them, creating spectacular scenes without any projectors at all.
2. Desert Utopia: Mid-Century Architecture in Palm Springs
Southern California’s Coachella Valley, including the communities of Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs, boasts hundreds of extraordinary midcentury modern homes, public buildings and commercial structures. Modern designers such as William F. Cody, Albert Frey, William Krisel, John Lautner, Richard Neutra, R.M. Schindler, Donald Wexler, E. Stewart Williams left their collective mark on this desert paradise. Desert Utopia: Mid-Century Architecture in Palm Springs traces the history of modern architecture in Palm Springs from the first bold forays into modernist design to the preservation challenges facing the region today. Director Jake Gorst’s film features rare archival images and footage as well as interviews with historians, homeowners and the architects who helped create this mecca of modernism.
3. This is How the Obelisk Was Born (Así Nació el Obelisco)
The construction of the Obelisco in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
4. Years of Construction (Years of Construction)
Demolition of the old and building of the new Kunsthalle in Mannheim in the years 2013 to 2018.
It has an average vote of 6.6 on TMDB.
5. Ralph Erskine
The British architect based in Stockholm looks back on major projects of a long career inspired by European Modernism combined with his personal sensitivity to nature and community. Erskine is especially valued for his vital understanding of social interaction, exemplified in commissions for universities and housing complexes built from Scandinavia to Italy. The architect takes the camera on a tour of his buildings while offering revealing comments and interpretations.
6. These Four Walls
A short documentary that takes a look at Pratt Institute's Architecture program and how the first years handle the rigorous workload.
7. Brasilia, Contradictions of a New City (Brasília, Contradições de uma Cidade Nova)
In 1967, de Andrade was invited by the Italian company Olivetti to produce a documentary on the new Brazilian capital city of Brasília. Constructed during the latter half of the 1950s and founded in 1960, the city was part of an effort to populate Brazil’s vast interior region and was to be the embodiment of democratic urban planning, free from the class divisions and inequalities that characterize so many metropolises. Unsurprisingly, Brasília, Contradições de uma Cidade Nova revealed Brasília to be utopic only for the wealthy, replicating the same social problems present in every Brazilian city.
It has an average vote of 7.5 on TMDB.
8. Alvar Aalto: Technology and Nature (Alvar Aalto: tekniikka ja luonto)
The Finnish architect Alvar Aalto is one of the great figures of modern architecture, ranked alongside Gropius, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. This film analyses Aalto’s uniquely successful resolution of the demands and possibilities created by new technology and construction materials with the need to make his buildings sympathetic both to their users and to their natural surroundings. His inventive use of timber in particular represents both a reference to the forest landscape of Finland and a building material that is ‘warm’ and extremely adaptable. Filmed in Finland, Italy, Germany and the USA, this documentary shows how the Finnish natural environment and art traditions were essential elements in Aalto’s pioneering harmonization of technology and nature.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
9. Paradise Circus
Mothers, architects, artists, shoppers and other women who live and work in Birmingham explore the contradictions of the city, its promises, frustrations and disappointments, and suggest that listening to the experiences of women may hold the answer to the impoverished 'concrete jungle' so familiar today.
10. Benny and Stockholm House of Culture (Benny och kulturhuset)
A portrait of Benny Fredriksson who for 16 years was CEO of Kulturhuset / Stadsteatern. He also had a background as an actor and director. In connection with a media hunt he resigned and later took his own life.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
11. Gare du Nord : La Plus Grande Gare d'Europe (Gare du Nord : La Plus Grande Gare d'Europe)
(Gare du Nord : La Plus Grande Gare d'Europe)
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
12. New Towns for Old
Sheffield stands in as 'Smokedale', an industrial Everytown, in this stirring call for "new schools, new hospitals, new roads, new life", after WWII.
13. A City Reborn
Coventry prepares to rise from the ashes of WWII in this docu-drama written by Dylan Thomas.
14. St. Peter's and the Papal Basilicas of Rome 3D (San Pietro e le Basiliche Papali di Roma)
The unveiled treasures in the year of the Extraordinary Jubilee. The Papal Basilicas of Rome seen as never before: St. Peter's, St. John in the Lateran, St Mary Major, St Paul Outside the Walls and the works of art enshrined within them. A film tour shot from previously unseen points of view with the latest-generation 3D and 4K technology.
It has an average vote of 8.5 on TMDB.
15. The New Apartment (Die neue Wohnung)
A commissioned film for Schweizerischer Werkbund , Die neue Wohnung was produced for the Basel architectural and interior design exhibition, WOBA, to demonstrate innovative aspects of modern architecture and highlight their differences from the event’s highly conservative approach. Despite its ad campaign roots, Richter's touch is not absent; The surviving version, aimed at a "bourgeois" Swiss public, presents decluttered, functional architecture and decor as superior to the traditional and luxurious "ancient" ways of living.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
16. Antídots per a un paradís fake (Antídots per a un paradís fake)
The twelfth edition of the International Meeting of Collective Architectures was held in Palma de Mallorca, in the neighborhoods of La Soledat, Nou Llevant and Es Molinar, at the end of September 2019. The meeting focused on the imposition of false paradises and the description of the current mechanisms of urban transformation that expel people from their neighborhoods.
17. Twilight City
A fictional letter from a daughter, Olivia, to her mother in Dominica is the narrative thread connecting interviews from black and Asian cultural critics, historians and journalists. The choice of occupation for the daughter, a researcher, perhaps strains the narrative conceit too far. Nevertheless, for an avowedly political documentary the result is absorbing.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
18. Le Corbusier (Le Corbusier)
Making a documentary on Le Corbusier is not easy, because he is undoubtedly the architect most familiar to the general public but also the most unknown. If most people know his great achievements, such as the Cité radieuse of Marseille, the pavilions of the Cité universitaire de Paris or the Tourettes convent, many are unaware of his works in Moscow, Rio de Janeiro or Chandigarh. Roy Oppenheim pays a vibrant tribute to Corbusier, dismissing the criticisms and darker facets of the character. It presents the career of this pioneering architect, as well as his thinking, the essential principle of which was aimed at the development of human beings and the balance of society. Light, space and greenery are integrated into his large futuristic cities, because according to him the eyes of the inhabitants should be drawn into the distance and not into their neighbor's bathroom.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
19. Space, Land and Time: Underground Adventures with Ant Farm
"What we were trying to do was the ultimate form of architecture, which was predicting how society would use space, land and time." Curtis Schreier, ANT FARM Space, Land and Time: Underground Adventures with Ant Farm is the first film to consider the work of the renegade 1970s art/architecture collective Ant Farm, best known for its iconic land-art piece Cadillac Ranch. Radical architects, video pioneers, and mordantly funny cultural commentators, the Ant Farmers created a body of deeply subversive multidisciplinary work that questioned the boundaries of architecture and everything else in the process. Incorporating breathtaking archival video, new footage shot over ten years and animation based on zany period sketches, this film is about the joy of creation in a time when there were no limits. —Beth Federici
20. Goff
GOFF explores the life of architect Bruce Goff, one of the most innovative yet forgotten American architects of the 20th century, and the path that lead to the destruction and restoration of his memory and dwellings.
