Doc Snippets Selected Documentary Segments
/in Documentary /by RickMeghOn a recent event at U.C.L.A., the 43rd Congress of the Romanian Academy of Arts and Science, I was invited by its Interim President, Prof. Ileana Costea, about what I do as an architect-filmmaker. I decided to edit “an extended trailer” of selected segments from my films. I called it “Doc Snippets.”
Beyond some short notes on my architectural practice and of my passion for film since I was a student, I saw the question “Why are architectural documentaries important?” as the most relevant. Why?
The transformation of the planet to accommodate 10 billion people by 2050 will demand the active input of all its inhabitants, which would include self-help. Architecture awareness is critical to confront planetary challenges such as climate change, sustainability, population growth, mobility, food production, conservation of natural spaces, visual pollution, and over-crowding.
My films, most of them on architecture-related subjects, try to inform the viewer about the relationship between quality-space and human scale, and about meaning in the configuration of spaces.
Architecture + People in San Diego Architecture 2019 in San Diego: Downtown, the Central Library, the Salk Institute
/in Documentary /by RickMeghSan Diego’s downtown transformation conveys an important message to many cities’ challenges. It is possible to increase density while maintaining high standards of design quality. It is possible to mitigate traffic by bringing efficient public transportation. It is possible to build high-quality public buildings within the budget.
It was late May when we first considered the possibility of registering for a Brendon Burchard “Influencer” seminar in San Diego in October. “We haven’t been there for about a decade. It sounds like a good excuse,” I said. We signed up. It was a good decision. What we saw and learned in a few days well exceeded our expectations.
“What’s new to see in architecture?” I asked Google while doing basic research. A small, five-story, zero energy mixed-use building, Torr Kaelan, caught my attention. It had been designed by Rob Quigley, an architect unknown to me. Some of the building’s details reminded Carlo Scarpa’s design. Googling more on Rob Quigley, I reached the San Diego Central Library project. I couldn’t tell much by looking at the photographs that I found online, but I marked it as a place to visit.
We decided to set our base in Little Italy. I found a lovely small hotel, Urban Boutique, next to a European-style piazza known at Piazza della Famiglia. It was located a mile-plus from the event we planned to attend. “We could do some exercise by walking the distance in less than a half-hour,” I said to Ruth. Once we arrived at the hotel, we parked the car and didn’t move it until we left.
We found the downtown area transformation, since the last time we had been there, very impressive. It had become a thriving center easily accessible by foot, bike, car, or public transportation. Its urban scale was right, the traffic was moderate, and we noticed a number of new, well-designed condominiums.
Yet the biggest surprise was the central library. According to the architect, it had been conceived as “a 9-story archive of flexible space, sandwiched at the top and ground floors, with diverse and accessible public amenities.” The library opened in 2013, following a protracted 17-year period of design and construction. This may explain the 1970s–1980s flavor. The material of choice was concrete, for both cost and maintenance.
A spacious atrium and a roof garden, accented by a symbolic dome, provided an urban identity to the building. We found the different areas well crafted, with some of the spaces quite spectacular.
The “Influencer” event, structured as good content (psychology, physiology, productivity, persuasion) wrapped with entertainment, was remarkable for the diversity of over two thousand participants. There were people from all over the United States and also from many other countries. Our new chanceful acquaintances included a woman from Soroka, in the Republic of Moldova, an actress from Istanbul, a French couple from Montpellier and other people ranging in age from teenagers to adults in their seventy’s.
We couldn’t leave San Diego without revisiting Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute in La Jolla. It triggered memories. When we were in our late twenty’s, we worked in Tel Aviv for Ram Karmi. When Kahn visited Israel, Karmi invited him and his wife for dinner at his condo, and asked us to join them. At the end of the evening, he said “pick up Kahn at his hotel tomorrow morning and take him to see the Central Bus Station,” of which I had been working on its details for several months. The gargantuan building, then under construction, was mostly done in exposed concrete.
Until a scheduled late-lunch, at 3:00 PM, to be joined by Carmela, Karmi’s his first wife, we spent five hours with Louis Kahn all for ourselves! During the three-hour-long lunchtime, Louis Kahn talked most of the time. It was like listening to Socrates. Kahn’s intellect was very high, and his language was, at times, incomprehensible to us.
Back in 1971, we had made our first visit to the Salk Institute at the end of our “Frank Lloyd Wright’s pilgrimage,” during which we visited and photographed over one hundred of Wright’s works across twenty-five states. At the time, the Salk Institute was one of the most famous buildings in the world. Seeing it again forty-five years later was less impacting, although now I could read that, while its work in concrete remained impeccable, its greatness was in its scale and in the way the large court opens to the ocean.
The link between the architecture we discovered and the people we met produced a highly productive and rewarding weekend!
Shirin Neshat Magic Realism Without Smiles
/in Documentary /by RickMeghShirin Neshat is a great artist. She captures depth from the subjects of her photographic portraits, and she creates fiction in her films and videos at a quality level comparable to some of the works of Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, and Michelangelo Antonioni. Their uniqueness also derives from her feminine sensitivity and her understanding of ancient cultures. In doing so, she opens for the Western World a window to look at the other, beyond itself.
The exhibition at The Broad is named “I Will Bring the Sun Again,” from the title of a poem by the Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad. It presents over 230 photographs and eight video installations, curated by Ed Schad. The images take us to ancient cultures that include not only Persia’s ancient history and traditions but also to Morocco, Mexico, Egypt, and Azerbaijan, not as tourists, but as observers of displacement, alienation, and political oppression.
The exhibition inspired me to produce a short documentary as an homage to Shirin Neshat’s work.
¡SÍ, SE PUEDE! Women of Action in Architecture and in Politics
/in Blog, Documentary /by RickMeghThis short documentary, “¡Si Se Puede!” is dedicated to women of action on two subjects: architecture and politics. Unseemingly related the two disciplines follow a similar process: DREAM > PROGRAM > DESIGN > BUILD. Both crafts demand courage, imagination, and tenacity.
The cry used as the title was conceived by Dolores Huerta (89) during the 1970s and has been since then the motto of the United Farm Workers of America. President Barak Obama adopted the English version “Yes, we can!” first during the 2004 Illinois Democratic primary race for US Senate. It became a slogan of his 2008 presidential campaign.
Dolores Huerta, neither an architect nor a politician – she has always been an American labor leader and civil rights activist – is chosen here as a symbol of a woman fighting for ideas.
Women-Architects and Women-Politicians
The first two Democratic debates of twenty candidates running for President included six women: Senators Elizabeth Warren, MA; Kamala Harris, CA; Kirsten Gillibrand, NY; Amy Klobuchar MN; Representative Tulsi Gabbard, and Self-help author, Mariane Williamson. Their platforms have many overlapping, similar subjects. From all these, the most related to architecture are sustainability, the environment, infrastructure, education, affordable housing, and food production.
Included are also Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, NY, who won her nomination to the Congress at the age of twenty-nine, and Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, the first woman to hold the office. Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed Green New Deal is likely to influence political decision-making in the foreseeable future. Anne Hidalgo’s major part of her development program is the improvement of the environment. The infrastructure development plan also includes a 24-hour subway service, a ban on parking in certain areas and days, and the creation of new green areas, including urban farming.
The women-architects presented in the documentary come from different countries – Canada, Irak, Poland, Israel, Mexico, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the UK, and the US – and they have built, besides their countries of residence, in Bangladesh, China, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinean West Bank, and New Zealand.
There is a gap between the politicians and the architects on the broadness of worldview. While most of the politicians look widely at climate change, their vision on the physical implications of some of their subjects is limited to what is known. Architects, by training, learn to think globally and in multiple layers of complexity, and only then they work on the details. They use not only logical thinking but also lateral thinking, which implies infinite possibilities.
Besides Zaha Hadid, who died in 2016 at the age of sixty-five, the most innovative of the women architects brought here is Elizabeth Diller, a Partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Her works include the High Line in New York and The Broad in Los Angeles. The Shed, currently under construction at the northern end of the High Line, is scheduled for completion in 2019. When completed, it is likely to become a revolutionary new icon of multi-use architecture. The $500m Center for the Performing Arts will house a vast transformable space and a big open piazza able to be covered by the extension of the movable outer shell, clad with an inflatable skin of quilted pneumatic cushions.
The Chicago skyline would not be the same without American architect Jeanne Gang. Aqua, the unique skyscraper that has become well-known for its wavy facade, is the third tallest building in the world designed by a woman. Most recently, she was named to the TIME 100 most influential people of 2019.
Also significant is the use of bamboo as a building material in the works of Anna Heringer in China and of Elora Hardy in Bali. Bamboo, an eco-friendly construction material, is one of the fastest-growing plants in the world.
Another architect to follow is Benedetta Tagliabue. In 1991 she founded the studio Miralles Tagliabue EMBT with Enric Miralles (1955-2000.) Her works include the Scottish Parliament in Edinburg, The Santa Caterina Market in Barcelona, and the Spanish Pavilion in Shanghai, shown here.
Architects can take initiatives without waiting for a commission, but, in the final event, moving from paper-architecture to built-buildings requires other decision-makers: clients, city authorities, bankers, the community. The role of politicians is critical when the decisions needed are related to the urban environment, housing, and public institutions.
Politicians may – and should – dream big, yet moving from dreams to legislation to implementation demands, to a great extent, relaying on imaginative architects, who should possess, besides their skills, high moral standards.
A Personal Note
Influential women occupied a dominant place in my life. My mother, Fanny Frenkel de Maghidovich, was a strong presence not only at home but also publicly. As Secretary-General of Argentina’s WIZO (Women International Zionist Organization,) she influenced thousands of listeners with her rhetoric in impeccable Spanish.
I grew up surrounded by loving aunts. From these, my aunt “Chichi,” Dr. Marta Luz Frenkel, is an attorney still going to work every day at ninety-four. She is more “a big sister” than an aunt, and I rely on her judgment. I was also blessed by women-teachers of Spanish, English, and Math and I befriended some extraordinary women: Nancy Reeves, a pioneering feminist; Irena Kovaliska and Ilana Offer, committed artists; Sylvia Manheim, a political activist still fighting for human rights at ninety-four. The list goes on and on.
Last but not least, are my wife Ruth, also a partner as an architect, and our daughter Gabby, who, after practicing psychiatry, is still looking for new challenges. They both make a dent on my daily decision-making.
Architecture and the Politics of Ideas Bernie Sanders Ideas Illustrated and its Meaning for Architecture
/in Documentary, Event /by RickMeghThe world is at a critical moment. Architecture by itself can not generate the many solutions that is able to offer without a politically supported global plan. Enlighted and moral leadership are badly needed.
“The only safeguard Democracy can have is a free, morally enlightened fearless minority. Fear is the real danger in any democracy.”
Frank Lloyd Wright
“Change does not depend on us (architects;) change depends on you (the people.)”
Luigi Pellegrin
Why “Architecture and the Politics of Ideas?”
Frank Lloyd Wright believed that architecture was a crusade on behalf of human civilization rather than a mere profession. In this sense, Thomas Jefferson was an architect, and so were Mahatma Gandhi and David Ben-Gurion.
Bruno Zevi thought that architecture and political ideas are indivisible, so much so that, at one point, he became a member of the Italian Parliament (Radical Party, 1987-1992) and a co-founder of the Liberal-Socialist Action Party in 1998.
Donald Trump’s ascension to power sounded a screeching alarm. It echoed the rise of Fascism with Mussolini, the ascent of Nazism in the early 1930s, and Fascist-Communism as led by Stalin in the Soviet Union and by Mao Tze-Tung in China. It echoed George Orwell’s 1984: “War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. Big Brother is Watching You.”
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren bring leadership qualities that could help to invent the future with a wide vision and with greater optimism. Their cabinet may include people like Kamala Harris as Attorney General, John Biden as Secretary of State, and other intelligent politicians, such as Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro, Marianne Williamson, Pete Buttigieg…It could include a still-to-be-found “new Daniel Patrick Moynihan.” It may also include a Republican such as John Kasich.
Why Bernie as number one? Because he thinks like a statesman. His broad agenda fits not only America’s long list of needs but also a world starving for leadership and direction. Climate change, sustainability, inequality, the arms race are not just American issues; they are global. If approaching them creatively, the planet could be transformed positively beyond anything we can think of today. Architecture could then play a pivotal role.
Serpentine L.A. and Beyond
/in Documentary /by RickMeghThe playful Serpentine L.A. Pavilion, erected in-between the La Brea Tar Pits and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, brings a smile to an area characterized by an eclectic architectural mix. Designed by Spanish architects José Selgas and Lucía Cano, a design partnership known as SelgasCano and based in Madrid, was initially commissioned by the Serpentine Galleries in London and installed at the Gallery’s site in London’s Hyde Park back in 2015. Thanks to a partnership between creative workspace Second Home and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, the 866-square-foot area in an X-shaped plan is wrapped with fluorine-based plastic in multiple colors.
Creating temporary pavillions a subject suitable for experimentation. Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Buckminster Fuller, Frei Otto, Carlo Scarpa and hundreds of architects designing for world fairs took their commissions as an opportunity to experiment. The SalgasCano team methodology echoes Gehry’s playful studies of space. And yet, unlike Gehry’s costly end-products, the Serpentine Pavilion gives the feeling that everyone could do it, even children. And why not?
What is this work’s main message? First and foremost, it is experimental. “Architecture as an isolated episode, a gesture, doesn’t interest us. We believe in total freedom to try and respond to concrete needs, which we express via play and the use of color,” says Salgas. “We have no set forms, styles, or concepts; our architecture is generated by reading the places and the lives of those who will live there. We have worked to free ourselves of all the clichés absorbed during our university education, dogmas that have blocked us without us knowing why. Designing is spontaneous and natural. Rejecting stereotypes allowed us to grow and become what we are today.”
Off-Leash in Long Beach
/in Documentary /by RickMeghThis short documentary “Off-Leash in Long Beach” is a vignette of the city’s Rosie’s Dog Beach. It is also a metaphor for human needs to meet and mix in a natural setting.
“Spaces for People” is defined not only by buildings but also by public places such as streets, beaches, and mountain trails. In this sense, Rosie’s Dog Beach sends a powerful message to city planners and decision-makers on how to enrich the urban environment.
'>Venice Art Walk 2019 – As We Saw It Eight Artists' Studios - The Artists, Their Work
/in Documentary /by RickMeghVenice is the hometown of many artists. Once a year, the Venice Family Clinic organizes the Venice Art Walk. It is a fund-raising event that includes a silent auction and artists studios open to the public. After checking on the thirty-four artists having open studios, we shortlisted eight: Laddy John Dill (with whom Ruth had […]
Black Power Art From "Soul of a Nation" to African American Art Now
/in Documentary /by RickMeghBlack Power Art was inspired by The Broad’s new exhibition in Los Angeles, “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983.” It is intended to be an eye-opener, not just to the work of African-American artists during a crucial period of self-assertion, but also to echo African American art today. The timing is right. When bigotry is, once again, raising its head, consciousness of who we are as humans are critical.
The exhibition includes paintings, sculptures, murals, and photography of 60 artists. It proclaims intellectual power vis-à-vis a little-aware public. However, the implication of the show is much broader. It brings the past as shown in the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the eloquence of James Baldwin, and the biting humor of Spike Lee.
Good art is good art, or it is not good art, whether the artist is African-American, Latino, Asian or white. Many of the themes in the exhibition are thematic, expressing the black condition at the time. However, abstract examples such as Jack Whitten’s fierce, frontal black triangle, “Homage to Martin,” and William T. Williams’ homage to John Coltrane, “Trane,” with its slashing spectrum of diagonal bands of color intersecting and overlaying each other, join the work of great artists, irrespectively of their ethnical background.
Marcello Guido: Architecture in Motion Poetic Perception of Space in Movement
/in Documentary /by RickMeghFrom Calabria, in the southern tip of Italy, architect Marcello Guido sends a powerful message of “architecture in motion” expressed in concrete, steel, and glass. His poetry generates continuously changing perceptions of space.
Born in Acri, Cosenza, in 1953, he studied architecture in Rome and graduated in 1977 cum laude under the tutorship of historian and critic of architecture, Bruno Zevi. In four decades he built projects and participated in design competitions that brought him recognition in Italy. This presentation is intended to bring to the attention of the general public the remarkable work of Marcello Guido.
At first sight, his work could be mistakenly classified under Deconstructivism, a movement which appeared in the 1980s under the influence of French philosopher Jacques Derida. Architects frequently associated with Deconstructivism includes Daniel Libeskind, Frank Gehry, and Bernard Tschumi. But unlike these, Guido’s architecture is deeply rooted in history.
Borromini is clearly present in the fluidity of Guido’s lines, as in Wright’s philosophy of Organic Architecture, that anticipated the Netherlands-based De Stijl movement.
Guido reinterprets history in the spirit of Bruno Zevi’s Modern Language of Architecture, which advocates asymmetry and dissonance, antiperspective three-dimensionality, the use of space in time as perceived in movement, and the reintegration between building, city, and territory.
My discovery of Guido’s architecture occurred last summer in Rome while visiting the exhibition celebrating Zevi’s 100 birthday, focused on Zevi’s influence on many important Italian architects. My late “discovery” reminded me when, as a student of architecture in Rome, I encounter the work of Luigi Pellegrin. Then as now, my reaction was instantaneous, non-intellectual: this is an Architect with the capital A.
As We Saw It – Coda: Israel Vignettes Architecture, Urban Growth, Stories from the Holocaust, a Raw Beach, Friends and a Reenacting of a First Meeting
/in Documentary /by RickMeghFollowing filming in Paris, Berlin and Rome, our focus in Israel, other than spending good time with our daughter, was to document some of the country’s mushrooming residential construction, to record the new Memorial Hall of Israel’s Fallen at Mount Herzl, to interview Aaron Krumholtz, Ruth father’s eldest brother, 94, and to see some friends. For Ruth’s birthday, Gabby suggested reenacting our first meeting as students at the Technion in Haifa.