Higher and Higher

The Finnish architect Alvar Aalto (1898–1976) 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.

The camera goes back through the alleys and alleys of the community, leading the viewer to compare, with simultaneous shots of 76 and 96, the little or almost nothing that was accomplished, the neglect of the State, the abandonment over the 20 years. Finishing with a virtual image of the colored facades, as part of the proposed urbanization.

Presented in the guise of an autobiography, this program describes the life and work of Antoni Gaudí. It highlights his personality, his sensitivity and the images of his art.

A core group of architects embraced the West Coast from Vancouver to LA with its particular geography and values and left behind a legacy of inspired dwellings. Today, architects celebrate the influence established by their predecessors.

In 1959, a government employee named Richard Oyler, living in the tiny desert town of Lone Pine, California, asked world-famous modern architect Richard Neutra to design his modest family home. To Oyler's surprise, Neutra agreed. Thus began an unlikely friendship that led to the design and construction of an iconic mid-century modern masterpiece.

A look at contemporary Paris through the lens of theories and ideologies of the past two centuries, with a particular focus on the utopian socialist ideas of Charles Fourier.

On the occasion of the fourty years anniversary of François Mitterand's election, a look back to the relationship between the President and artists, from admiration to manipulation.

In the 1960s, frustrated by the growing problem of urban pollution, Athelstan Spilhaus, a visionary scientist and futurist comic strip writer, assembled a team of experts to develop a bold experiment: the Minnesota Experimental City (MXC). MXC would be the city of the future, a domed metropolis for 250,000 pioneering residents, built from scratch and using cutting-edge technology to prevent urban sprawl and pollution. Things didn’t quite go as planned, as explored in Chad Friedrichs’ fascinating look back at the would-be city of tomorrow.

Minimalist documentary by Rax Rinnekangas about the wooden cottage "La Cabanon" designed and built in 1952 by Swiss architect and furniture designer Le Corbusier - a refuge intended for a single person with a living space of only 3.66 x 3.66 meters. The construction followed Corbusier's maxim that architecture must adapt to the human body and not vice versa. 

Through a series of animated art boards depicting a decaying Venice, the film unfolds like a set of postcards, capturing the mythical city's final moments of fragility. Blending archival footage with contemporary observations, and anchored by the story of the 1902 collapse of St Mark's Campanile, Venezia Diorama invites us to reflect on a city slowly eroding, yet suspended in time.

5000 years ago the ancient Elamites established a glorious civilization that lasted about three millennia. They created marvelous works in architecture and craftsmanship. These works of art depict the lifestyle, thoughts, and beliefs of the Elamites.

This film is a portrait of unique cultural space for Spirits, Gods and People. While permanent theatres are commonly built in most cosmopolitan modern cities, Hong Kong preserves a unique theatrical architecture, a Chinese tradition that has lasted more than a century - Bamboo Theatre.

Kamenná sláva

Tracing the history of blue jeans around the globe.

Filmed in Rome in the 1980s, the work draws on Borromini’s Baroque architecture and Il Sassetta’s St. Martin and the Beggar. Beavers contrasts winter’s subdued light with the verdant growth of spring, constructing a precise montage in which image and sound form a poetic dialogue.

Nel silenzio del parco

Documentary with new new high-definition footage of the Fallingwater house, but centered on an older 1982 interview with Edgar Kaufmann Jr.

A portrait of the internationally acclaimed Japanese architect who employs Buddhist ideas and western modernism to achieve intercultural architecture.

A film on the social movements upholding the right to live in the city of Lisbon at a time when the struggle for urban space builds up as the result of the expansion of financial capitalism, which concentrates wealth in the hands of a few and increases social inequality. A film on those who challenge the conversion of the city into merchandise and disobey injustice by empowering those who seek a place to live.

Explorations in 21st Century American Architecture Series: Ray Kappe has long been a cult figure in the architectural scene in and around Los Angeles. In 1972, he founded the influential, avant garde Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-ARC), where many of the younger-generation architects have studied or taught.