Demolition of the old and building of the new Kunsthalle in Mannheim in the years 2013 to 2018.
A study of the ruined Egyptian pyramid of the 4th dynasty pharaoh Djedefre, including evidence from a ten-year excavation which supports new theories about his reign and the pyramid's importance.
Arata Isozaki: Early Work in Japan takes a detailed look at the architect's pieces, exploring applauded projects such as the EXPO '70 Osaka Festival Plaza, Gunma Prefectural Museum of Modern Art and Kitakyushu Municipal Library. The extraordinary series of architectural breakthroughs made during this time contributed significantly to the evolution of contemporary architecture worldwide, and eventually gained him his first foreign commission
In 2017 Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, formerly The KLF, returned after 23 years of silence with a new project. They were no longer a pop group but undertakers, building the People's Pyramid out of bricks made from the ashes of dead people.
Sacsayhuamán, an ancient citadel amidst the Peruvian Andes, is an architectural marvel. It was built more than 900 years ago, and no living person knows how such large rocks were fitted so perfectly into walls. This documentary takes us on a tour of Sacsayhuamán, offering a brief history of the site, and clues that may help to its understand how it was made. It was edited from photos and video taken in July 2012, when Russian geophysicists conducted soil research there, at the request of Peru's Ministry of Culture.
Explore the revolutionary engineering behind Paris’s iconic landmark. Completed in just over two years for the 1889 World’s Fair, the iron tower smashed the record for the tallest structure on Earth, ushering in a new age of global construction that reached for the skies. How did the engineers do it? Follow the innovations, successes, and failures that made one of the most famous buildings on the planet possible.
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 (Brasília, Contradictions of a New City, 1968) revealed Brasília to be utopic only for the wealthy, replicating the same social problems present in every Brazilian city. (Senses of Cinema)
25 BIS is an intimate portrait of a masterpiece from the beginning of Auguste Perret’s career: the building located on 25 Bis, Rue Franklin in Paris. The film looks for the intangible and subjective element of the building’s history: the depth of its human print. The building appears as a sedimentation of life stories where each layer has left the trace of a passage. From the intimate nature of these stories, the film draws this fragile and undefined essence that could be called “the soul of the place”.
Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Pyramid is the only one to survive. Many believe that even with our 21st-century technology, we could not build anything like it today. Based on the most up-to-date research and the latest archaeological discoveries, here is how the Pyramid came to be.
In the same vein as Meri's other documentations, this one takes advantage of the glasnost policy to discuss the social and ecologic impact of the Russian oil industry on the natives and the lands they inhabit.
French architect Jean Nouvel has long been known in Europe for his bold, shimmering glass museums, concert halls, and high-rise towers. Now the much-acclaimed new Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which opened in 2006, is displaying Nouvel's remarkable talents to an American public. With a cantilevered lobby that extends 175 feet over the Mississippi River, the dark midnight-blue, aluminum-paneled structure has captivated the culturally conscious city and helped spur the rejuvenation of a once-industrial waterfront. In the tour, Nouvel takes us through three distinctive theaters he designed for the Guthrie, and out onto the cantilevered deck to view the legendary river that inspired the boldly elevated design.
Not many people know that there is in the center of Hong Kong, a city of 50,000 inhabitants that escape authority, a city which holds no law and no order, the ‘walled city’. Never before has a television crew been allowed to enter this labyrinth. Christa Wesemann, an Austrian documentary filmmaker, has achieved this for the first time. The recordings from the ‘walled city’ are breathtaking pictures, as it has never seen the world. The history and daily flow in Walled City are ruled by the ‘triad’, a Chinese crime syndicate.
A commissioned film for Schweizerischer Werkbund (SWB), 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.
Every day, Paris’ six railway stations welcome over 3,000 trains and more than a million travelers coming from France and all over Europe. The stations’ sizes are impressive: Gare du Nord is bigger than the Louvre or Notre-Dame de Paris. These railway stations are architectural landmarks and a model of urban planning despite the radical changes they’ve undergone since their construction in the middle of the 19th century. How did the railway stations manage to absorb the boom of travelers in just a few decades? What colossal works were necessary to erect and then modify these now essential buildings? From the monumental glass walls of Gare du Nord to the iconic tower of Gare de Lyon, to the first-ever all-electric train station, each has its own story, technical characteristics, and well-defined urban image.
A visual journey through Norwegian modernist church architecture. A short documentary film that pays tribute to the Norwegian church and post-war postmodernist architects for its daring reform of the 50-70's innovative church building. Raw concrete and cold clean lines in a functionalist style were in line with society's development, but in stark contrast to what the church had previously represented. The film portrays 25 of these churches from all over the country
The memory of Piero Portaluppi, a Milanese architect who reached the peak of his fame during the 20 years of the Fascist regime, comes back to life, both through the rediscovery of his work today and in a previously unpublished film diary in 16 mm, shot and edited throughout his lifetime. A man of great charm and power, Portaluppi lived through a grandiose but tragic era with ironic detachment, as if dancing across things as he created beauty. History marches on implacably, radically transforming the arena in which the eclectic artist and his large family lived and worked.
A documentary focusing on the rebuilding projects in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Determined to hold on to the throne, Cleopatra seduces the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. When Caesar is murdered, she redirects her attentions to his general, Marc Antony, who vows to take power—but Caesar’s successor has other plans.
Escaping death, a Hebrew infant is raised in a royal household to become a prince. Upon discovery of his true heritage, Moses embarks on a personal quest to reclaim his destiny as the leader and liberator of the Hebrew people.
Die Pharaonin und das Goldland - Hatschepsuts Reise nach Punt