Connecting Edges Wake-up Calls from DocuDay to Jane Fonda

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Connecting Edges is a film about five unrelated events that I experienced during the second week of February 2020: DocuDay, the Oscars, a pre-screening of the TV series Hunters, Frieze Los Angeles, and a presentation by Jane Fonda of the restored film F.T.A. from 1972.
I thought of connecting dots between subjects that they contained: war, the threat to democracy, inequality, art, and architecture-related contradictions. Putting them together attempts to sound a warning for the times we live.

The Events

  1. DocuDay is a yearly event organized by the International Documentary Association. The day preceding the Oscars, ten nominated documentaries – five features and five shorts – are shown from 8:30 AM to midnight. Q&As follows each screening.
  2.  Watching the Oscars, together with another 23 million people. I correctly predicted two winners: the Korean Parasite and Joaquin Phoenix acting in Joker.
  3. Pre-screening of a pilot for a television series, Hunters. The message: fighting anti-Semitism. 
  4. Frieze Los Angeles, an international contemporary art fair showing emerging and established artists alongside a program of talks, films, and artists’ projects. The three-day event happens at the backlot movieset of Paramount Pictures Studios. 
  5. A presentation by Jane Fonda of the film F.T.A. from 1972, restored by HFPA (Hollywood Foreign Press Association,) at the American Cinematheque. 
Dr. Amani, The Cave
Frieze Los Angeles
Jane Fonda at the Egyptian Theater
Screening of Hunters at USC Cinematic Arts
The 2020 Oscars

Connecting Dots

War. The two Oscar-nominated documentaries, The Cave and For Sama, both showing the crude realities of Syria’s civil population being bombarded daily by President Bashar Hafez al-Assad forces and by Russians’ airplanes. It has been realized by extraordinarily courageous filmmakers (four crew members lost their lives during the filming of The Cave.) Listening live to surviving witnesses – the main characters of both films – was heartbreaking. And listening to Jane Fonda presenting the anti-war film F.T.A. almost half a century after is was done raises the question: will we ever learn?

The threat to democracy. The Brazilian documentary The Edge of Democracy shows a reality that could spread to other democratic countries, including the United States. The resemblance between far-right President Jair Bolsonaro (“Well, the pope may be Argentinian, but God is Brazilian”) and President Trump (“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”) is amazing. The dots also connect to Joaquin Phoenix’s speech at the Oscars and to some aspects of Joker’s message. Warnings about the dangers of resurrecting Fascism are also present in the TV-series Hunters.

Inequality. Director Bong Joon-ho’s film Parasite is more than just Oscar’s big winner. It is a film that also sends a warning about inequality and what it may lead to. A new French Revolution?

Art. The film Honeyland is one of the most poetic documentaries I have seen. Some of the scenes seem to be painted by Caravaggio. It also brings us to see a hidden world in a remote land, where resilience is key to survival. Its authenticity is in plain contrast to much of the artworks that I have seen at Frieze.  

Architecture-related contradictions. Putting together images of Paramount’s backlot fake New York facades, of Brasilia’s out-of-human-scale formalisms, of Honeyland’s main character house and of the caravan in which her new neighbors reside open serious questions about the future of architecture as expressed by Frank Lloyd Wright: “The future of architecture is the future of humanity; if humanity has a future, so will architecture.”

Aleppo under bombardment
Fight at Brasi’s Parliament
Flood in Korean city
Brasilia’s Parliament
At Frieze
At Frieze
At Frieze
At Frieze
At Frieze

Filmmaking Resume Segments of Documentaries Shot over the Course of Several Years

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This documentary is titled Filmmaking Resume as a reference to short bits of architectural footage shot over the course of several years, and published in Architecture Awareness, Cultural Weekly and in this website.

 

Although I have also created short films on art, politics, and cultural events, my focus here is on architecture-as-space, the essential language of architecture. This short documentary illustrates fragments on the works of twenty recognized contemporary architects. As such, it expresses how good design can resonate on a much deeper level and lead to a higher quality of life.

 

Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris. Architect: Frank Gehry
Disney Hall, Los Angeles. Architect: Frank Gehry
Lou Revo Center for Mental Health, Las Vegas. Architect: Frank Gehry
Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral. Architect: Rafael Moneo
Pavilion of Japanese Art, Los Angeles. Architect: Bruce Goff
The Wallis Center for the Performing Arts. Architect: Zoltan Pali
Paris Courthouse. Architect: Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Pathe Foundation, Paris.Architect: Renzo Piano Building Workshop
MAXXI, Rome. Architect: Zaha Hadid
Jewish Museum, Berlin. Architect: Daniel Libeskind
Reichstag, Berlin. Architect: Norman Foster
The Memorial Hall of Israel’s Fallen Soldiers. Architect: Kimmel Eshkolot
Porter School of Environmental Studies, Tel Aviv. Architect: Axelrod-Grobman, Joseph Cory
Supreme Court, Jerusalem. Architect: Ram karmi and Ada Karmi-Melamede
Tel Aviv Museum of Arte. Architect: Preston Scott Cohen
The Broad, Los Angeles. Architect: Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Mamilla Mall, Jerusalem. Architect: Moshe Safdie
Chords Bridge, Jerusalem. Architect: Santiago Calatrava
Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Architect: Albert Mansfeld
Tongva Park, Santa Monica. Architect: James Corner Field Operations

In dealing with the human condition in the 2020 decade, some of my future films are likely to focus on topics such as housing, sustainability, and open urban spaces.

As We Saw It – Part 7: Emotional Rome Streets, People, Architecture: A Personal Journey

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Coming back to Rome is always emotional. It triggers pleasant memories of our days as students of architecture, of lifelong friendships, of great teachers, of great art, architecture, lifestyle.

To link the central theme of “As We Saw It,” ‘what makes a city great,’ with what we chose to document through film and photography, we focused on ‘the city’s emotional intelligence’ and its connection to our own emotions. To do that, we decided to record streets and piazzas rather than buildings, with few exceptions, such as the Pantheon, the MAXXI and the church of Sant’Andrea Della Valle.

View of Rome – Piazza di Spagna

Piazza navona

Campo De’ Fiori
Piazza Farnese
Piazza di Spagna
Pantheon
Michelangelo’s Campidoglio
Bernini’s The Rape of Prosperina
Bernini’s The Elephant and the Obelisk
Pasta
Campo De’ Fiori
Campo De’ Fiori
Campo De’ Fiori
Shop Window
Piazza
Street with Bridge
Green Facade
Reflection – Sant’Andrea della Valle
Selfie – Sant’Andrea della Valle
The Maghidovich – Trevi Fountain, 1956

Formative Past: Architecture and Cinema

We were “adopted” by Bruno Zevi soon after we joined his History of Architecture class. Besides tutoring our theses, he also invited us to his home to have lunch with Carlo Scarpa and connected us with Edgar Kaufmann Jr. in New York, who opened for us the gates of Wright’s Fallingwater.

Our relationship with Pellegrin was also unique. He co-tutored our theses, and we worked for him on important projects: many competitions for schools, the University of Barcelona, Goree Island’s master plan in Senegal, Palazzo Aldobrandini’s restoration in Rome, and research on futuristic habitats.

Professor Bruno Zevi – Photo: Elisabeth Catalano

Architect Luigi Pellegrin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pellegrin’s House, 1964
Pellegrin’s House, 1964
Pellegrin and Soleri
Drawing – Luigi Pellegrin
Drawing – Luigi Pellegrin
Pellegrin and Rick, 1998

When we moved to Rome to continue our studies in architecture, going to the movies was an essential way of learning Italian fast. We were also lucky. In the vicinity of where we first lived, in the Parioli neighborhood, there was a cinema club at a church that showed every week movies followed by a Q&A with the directors. Among many others, we treasure having listened to Roberto Rossellini (Rome, Open City; Paisan; Stromboli ) and Gillo Pontecorvo (The Battle of Algiers; Kapò; Burn!)

After graduation, we moved to Rome’s Historic Center, minutes away from the Trevi Fountain and from Pellegrin’s studio. Our same-floor neighbor was Adriana Chiesa, who, at the time worked at La Medusa, one of Italy’s leading film distributors. We were friends when Adriana met and fell in love with cinematographer Carlo Di Palma (Divorce Italian Style, Red Desert, Blow-Up, Hanna and her Sisters, Radio Days.)

Carlo had a rich experience with directors like Michelangelo Antonioni (he shot Antonioni’s first color film, Red Desert) and with Woody Allen. He also worked for Bernardo Bertolucci, Lucchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, Francesco Rosi, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. I remember his comments about Igmar Bergman (“he worked like a scientist”) and about Federico Fellini (“a magician; he ‘hypnotized’ his actors, shooting without sound and talking to them while shooting.”)

Rossellini’s Rome, Open City
Film Posters
La Dolce Vita
Carlo Di Palma – Posters
Antonioni’s Red Desert
Monica Vitti
Carlo Di Palma, Adriana Chiesa Di Palma, Woody Allen

The MAXXI – Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo

Coincidentally with our visit, Zaha Hadid’s-designed MAXXI held two exhibitions that we wanted to see: one dedicated to Zevi’s 100th birthday, titled “Zevi’s Architects. History and Counter-History of Italian Architecture 1944-2000.” The other, “Tel Aviv the White City,” dedicated to the Bauhaus architecture in the city.

As a historian and critic of architecture, Zevi’s influence in Italy during the second half of the 20th Century was impacting. He published several pivotal books, such as Architecture as Space, The Language of Modern Architecture, A History of Modern Architecture, Erich Mendelsohn, was the editor of the magazine L’Architettura for over fifty years, taught history of architecture in Venice and in Rome, and was militant in the Radical Party, which he represented in the Chamber of Deputies from 1987 to 1992.

Zevi brought Frank Lloyd Wright’s ideas of Organic Architecture to the Italian peninsula, which influenced many architects, such as Carlo Scarpa, Luigi Pellegrin, Paolo Soleri, Marcello D’Olivo, Giovanni Michelucci and Aldo Loris Rossi, to name just a few.

The exhibition on Tel Aviv’s Bauhaus architecture, although very compact, provided an idea of the city’s rich past, which includes over 1500 buildings of the period.

MAXXI – Architect: Zaha Hadid
MAXXI – Ceiling
MAXXI – Lobby
MAXXI
MAXXI – Shop
MAXXI – Projection
MAXXI – Projection with collage
Asse Attrezzato – Model
Lucio Passarelli – Mixed Use
Italian Pavilion, Montreal, 1967
Italian Pavilion, Montreal 1967 – Plan
Arnaldo Pomodoro: Sphere within a Sphere
Bauhaus in tel Aviv Exhibition
Tel Aviv – Floor Aerial Photo

Rome’s beauty is the ultimate urban beauty because it has been shaped by time, uninterruptedly, over more than two thousand years.

Wim Wenders’ Humanism A Tribute to a Film Director who Focuses his Work on People

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The short documentary that accompanies this blog is a tribute to Wim Wenders.

About twenty years ago I discovered Wim Wenders’ work, through his film Wings of Desire. Later on, I fell in love with Buena Vista Social Club. Then came Pina, about the late choreographer Pina Bausch, whom we had first seen perform sitting on the last row of a “loges de côté,” way up at Paris’ Garnier Opera. Then came The Salt of the Earth, about Sebastião Salgado’s photography, whose life work honors the dispossessed and bears witness to the human condition. We saw it at a private screening in Hollywood. Wenders sat next to me, but we didn’t talk. He was much into himself, but we had a long conversation with Sebastião Salgado’s son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, who co-directed the film. And, recently, we went to see Pope Francis, preceding the interview of Ben Mankiewicz with Wim Wenders at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.
Wenders seemed relaxed and willing to bring up some of his experiences and ideas. He confided with an audience of filmmakers how surprised he was when he received a letter from the Vatican, asking him to make a documentary on the first pope from the Americas, also the first Jesuit.
Why did the Vatican or Pope Francis himself choose Wim Wenders to produce a documentary on the Argentinean pope? It was not only because of Wenders’ skills as a filmmaker, photographer, painter, playwright, and author. I think it was, above all, because of the humanism embedded in his work. The two men could communicate intellectually and emotionally. They could understand each other without talking.
Wenders told the audience that when he started his research, he realized that he had to tell something visually about Saint Francis of Assisi (1181-1226.) He watched many films on the subject, however, none was satisfying. Finally, he decided to produce black-and-white vignettes of St. Francis, with a look borrowed from the silent films era – a film within a film – shot on a vintage hand-cranked Debrie camera from the 1920’s.
Four interviews with the pope were recorded with a crew of three: cinematographer Lisa Rinzler, sound engineer Régis Muller and Wim Wenders. Archive footage from the pope’s many trips around the world and encounters with heads of state was later added, to provide context to the story.

My decision to make a short documentary about Wenders came as an urge. I had to offer a tribute.

Pina Bausch’s dancing company in the “Pina” film.
Pina Bausch – Photograph by Peter Lindberg.
Scene from “Wings of Desire.”
Blind Woman. Photo by Salvador Salgado.
Buena Vista Social Club, Adios, 2015.
Omara Portuondo and Gilberto Oviedo of BVSC, in Rome, 2012. Photo: Maria Laura Antonelli.
The Pope with Wim Winders – Photo: Focus Features via AP.
Ben Mankiewicz interviews Wim Wenders. Photo: Ruth Meghiddo.
Wim Wenders. Photo: Donata Wenders.

And The Winner Is… Q&A with the five Foreign Films directors nominated for the Golden Globes Awards 2018

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“And the Winner Is…” brings segments of a Q&A with the five Foreign Films directors nominated for the Golden Globes Awards sharing their thoughts and experiences on the making of their latest films. Angelina Jolie, Ruben Östlund, Andrey Zvigagintsev, Sebastian Lelio and Fatih Akin sat next to each other at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theater and answered questions posed by the moderator, Mike Goodrich, on their films: FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER, THE SQUARE, LOVELESS, FANTASTIC WOMAN AND IN THE FADE respectively, dealing with contemporary themes addressing the world today.

Golden Globes Awards 75th Anniversary
Golden Globes Awards
Foreign Films’ Directors Nominees
Symposium with the Nominee Directors
Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) Sponsorship
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie
Director Ruben Östlund
Director Fatih Akin
Director Angelina Jolie
Director Angelina Jolie with Writer Loung Ung
Director Ruben Östlund
Director Fatih Akin
Director Sebastian Lelio
Director Andrey Zviyagintsev

The day preceding the Golden Globs Awards night we sat at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theater in Hollywood surrounded by a public of creative people from the filmmaking community. The Q&A was moderated by Mike Goodrich. The directors, in spite of being competitors, were friendly and unassuming. Although my preferred film among the very good five was Ruben Östlund’s The Square, whom we had encountered the preceding day at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, I was very impressed by the humanity, eloquence and thinking of Angelina Jolie, well beyond her beauty and talent as an actress. Being acquitted with Cambodia’s genocide – back in 2008 we were commissioned to design a memorial in Long Beach, which has the largest Cambodian community outside of Phnom Penh – I thought that They Killed My Father First was important to raise the public’s awareness of the Cambodian tragedy.  The film was well crafted, besides its content.

Why was The Square my preferred film? Because I saw it as one of those films that mark a “before and after” point of reference, like La Dolce Vita in the 1960’s. It is a breakthrough in filmmaking, and I am glad that the Cannes Festival acknowledged that by awarding it the Palme d’Or. Many professional critiques disagree, and in fact, contrary to my predictions, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association did not award it, neither did it award Jolie’s film, which I considered the second best. The critique is that it is “disjointed.” Sure, and that’s the point. Östlund is perfectly coherent in the way he presents his social critique in a language consistent with the message. In a way, its satirical aspect reminded me the films of Luis Buñuel and the plays of Eugene Ionesco.

Fatih Akin’s input at the symposium was genuine. In the Fade is a very good thriller, but I agree with him that he would not have been there without the participation of Diane Kruger’s fabulous acting. The importance of this film dealing with terrorism and neo-nazi racism is that it focuses on the victim, rather than on the terrorists or the police investigators.

In Fantastic Woman, Sebastian Lelio confronted a difficult subject in telling the story of a transexual as a social message, to a great extent thanks to the performance of its star, Daniela Vega. He acknowledges that before the film he had had many prejudices about the subject, and only after long research he changed his mind.

Last but not least, Andrey Zviyagnitsev’s Loveless develop a theme that, unfortunately, it is quite universal: the victimization of children from an ugly divorce. The filmmaking is masterful in a  classical cinematographic way of painting a drama, but, like In the Fade, it is essentially a thriller.

Why would a filmmaker of architecture documentaries step on the field of feature films’ critique? An easy answer is ‘why not’? But the truth is that I see architecture as the ultimate expression of life itself, and it is nourished by all the arts and sciences. In many ways, I find that architecture and filmmaking have a similar process. As a personal note: in my first year at the School of Architecture of the University of Buenos Aires, we had a course named “Cultural Integration,” taught by Jorge Romero Brest. As part of the course, we had to go to watch assigned good cinema (Fellini, Antonioni, Tati, Kurosawa) every Saturday morning, and write a review by Monday. It was the way the school saw how to develop critical thinking in students that didn’t know a jota about architecture.

“And The Winner Is…” Obviously, YOU! 

Copyright R&R Meghiddo, 2017, All Rights Reserved.

Seen, Done, Thought, In-the Making On Photography, Films, Architecture, and 2018 Challenges

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The turn of the year offers an opportunity to summarize what we have seen, done and thought, and to program a new year. I am sharing with you selected photos we shot, films we watched and produced, architecture we recorded or selected, relevant books I read, and some thought on “The State of the World,” and what we can do to create a better tomorrow.

IMAGES

Showing images is the best way of “making a long story short.”

Click on: Selected Photography 2017.

Selected Photography 2017

Selected Photography 2017

The selection is personal and eclectic. Some have value as a document of an event rather than for its quality as a photograph.  The gallery includes panoramic photos, images of historical value (such as of architects Eric Lloyd Wright and Dion Neutra getting together in Malibu during Frank Lloyd Wright’s 150th birthday celebration, and civil rights activist  Dolores Huerta, who coined the slogan “Yes We Can – Si Se Puede,” borrowed by Obama ; film directors, producers and actors at Q & As’ we frequented;  Richard King’s memorial and the spreading of his ashes; and some people we met. As a coda, I also added recent underwater photos sent by our daughter Gabby from the Maldives Islands, southwest of Sri Lanka and India; and a few shots of us.

“Stars” included veteran director Marcel Ophuls, Alexander Payne (“Downsizing,”) Kathryn Bigelow (“Detroit,”) director Joe Wright and actor Gary Oldman (“The Darkest Hours,”) Annette Bening (“Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool,”) some images of nature in Idyllwild, and even a bird visiting my desk.

This year I also published for the first time a selection of photographs shot during our “Frank Lloyd Wright pilgrimage” back in 1971, when we visited over one hundred of Wright’s buildings across twenty-five states. 

https://archidocu.com/the-wright-way-2/ 

The Wright Way Photos.

The Wright Way Photos.

SELECTED FILMS SEEN IN 2017

We had a busy year watching documentaries + Q & As’ (presented by the International Documentary Association – IDA ) We also saw many feature films at the American Cinematheque,  at the WRAP, at the LA Jewish Film Festival, and at the Israel Film Festival. I share the list of some of them. They are all very good. The ones in bold letters are “must see.”

Alone in Berlin, Neruda, Hidden Figures, Gigi Gorgeous, Hell on Earth, Nobody Speaks, Dolores, Trophy, Icarus, Intent to Destroy, City of Ghosts, New York Times Op-Docs, 11/8/16, God Knows Where I Am, I Call Him Morgan, Step, One of Us, The Work, Oklahoma City, Finding Oscar, Atomic Homefront, The Rape of Recy Taylor, Under One Sun, An Inconvenient Sequel, Detroit, Columbus, I Am Evidence, Arthur Miller – Writer, Kedi, Chasing Coral, Ben Gurion, Epilogue, Cries from Syria, The Divine Order, The Final Year, Machines, Foxtrot, Call Me by Your Name, Downsizing, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, The Square, Human Flow, I Am not your Negro, Intent to Destroy, Strong Island, Phantom Thread, The Post.

Documentarians are real contemporary heroes. Many risk their lives in bringing to us images of genocidal wars, human brutality, racism, inequality, global warming, migration tragedies, political and corporate corruption, and also beauty in nature, indigenous cultures and extraordinary human beings. Most of this is produced following prolonged research, scouting, shooting, hard-editing work, meager budgets and scarce distribution.

They are a unique mix of artists-journalists working with passion, combining filmmaking excellence with the search for truth. Their work contributes to expanding our consciousness of the world we live in.

FILMS PRODUCED IN 2017

My own production this year was intense. With fifteen published titles, most of which have been published in Cultural Weekly, they exceeded two hours of film. This year I crossed the mark of sixty short documentaries. The ones published during 2017 are:

Tangoing with Paul & Amigos (12:13) A non-scripted experiment.

The Wright Way – An overture (17:21’)   The Wright Way Hint (2:36)  Both the “Overture” and the “Hint” were preliminary warm-ups towards  The Wright Way feature documentary (work-in-progress.)

Tongva Park and the Angelbird (5:33′) This open public space is the best architecture that we have documented this year in Los Angeles.

Architecture + Cinema + Hollywood (29:52) Renzo Piano’s Academy Museum under construction provided an opportunity to link the museum’s content with the Hollywood context and with architecture.

Idyllwild Idyll (9:12) “Back to nature,” this documentary includes the little-known Pearlman Cabin designed by architect John Lautner in 1957.

Netflix Night (2:55’) A not-scripted documentation of my first visit to Netflix.

Normality “Lo-Normali” /(4:56’) It summarizes the documentaries I shot in Israel during 2016.

Radio Day Unabridged (26:11) and  Radio Day (16:43) Both the full version (“Unabridged,” which includes questions on Israel) and the short version are the result of a radio interview hosted by Nancy Pearlman, to which I added visualization later on.

Architecture in a Nutshell (9:20’) An introduction to principles of architecture.

Human-Made Plastic Ocean (3:55) A Plastic Ocean premiere in Beverly Hills. See full cast.

Hanukkah’s First Candle (40:32) The lighting of Hanukkah’s fifth candle in a Greater Los Angeles home was not only the place for the gathering of people from many backgrounds and areas of the the city, but also for the screening of “Never Again is Now,” a new documentary telling a unique story of survival in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation, and sending a message about the danger of raising antisemitism in Europe and elsewhere, including the United States.

Mormon Temple Visit (1:51) A brief first visit to the secluded Mormon Temple in Los Angeles.

Food for Thought (2:58) Farm Urbana, as presented in “Food for Thought,” proposes practical solutions to help the rapidly growing urban population’s access to fresh food close to home.

FILMMAKING PLANS

The Wright Way, my first feature documentary, is on the way. It is to be a cry-out documentary about how some of Frank Lloyd Wright’s ideas and principles can help to inspire and appeal the young generation to create a sustainable future of livable cities and human settlements. Not a biography, it looks at Wright with fresh eyes and will suggest alternative scenarios for the future of the human environment with a sense of urgency.

ARCHITECTURE

Although 2017 has produced many new projects, I found most of them dominated by “acrobatics,” infatuation with 3-D renderings, and little concern confronting an urgent agenda towards sustainable quality mass-production, to narrow the gap between population growth, decaying cities, climate change and poverty. The production of Organic Architecture was practically zero. I chose to produce a short documentary on one of the exceptions, the  Tongva Park in Santa Monica (see “Tongva Park and the Angelbird” listed above.)

The exception is  Snøhetta, an international architecture, landscape architecture, interior design and brand design office based in Oslo, Norway and New York City with studios in San Francisco, Innsbruck, Singapore and Stockholm. A major new building  has opened in the south of France, framing a huge replica of one of the world’s most important examples of prehistoric cave art. Called Lascaux IV, the new visitor complex recreates the appearance and atmosphere of the caves in Montignac where the 20,000-year-old Lascaux paintings are located, but which have been closed to the public for over 50 years.

Lascaux, France. Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.
Caves of Lascaux Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.
Caves of Lascaux Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.
Lascaux IV / Snøhetta + Duncan Lewis Scape Architecture. Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.
Lascaux IV / Snøhetta + Duncan Lewis Scape Architecture. Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.
Lascaux IV / Snøhetta + Duncan Lewis Scape Architecture. Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.
Lascaux IV / Snøhetta + Duncan Lewis Scape Architecture. Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.
Lascaux IV / Snøhetta + Duncan Lewis Scape Architecture. Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.
Lascaux IV / Snøhetta + Duncan Lewis Scape Architecture. Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.
Lascaux IV / Snøhetta + Duncan Lewis Scape Architecture. Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.
Lascaux IV / Snøhetta + Duncan Lewis Scape Architecture. Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.
Caves of Lascaux .Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.
Lascaux IV / Snøhetta + Duncan Lewis Scape Architecture. Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.
Lascaux IV / Snøhetta + Duncan Lewis Scape Architecture. Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.
Lascaux IV / Snøhetta + Duncan Lewis Scape Architecture. Photo:: Boegly + Grazia photographers,Dan Courtice.

The examples that follow have been produced by committed architects and designers: Brooks + Scarpa, Snohetta, Whitaker Studio, Eric Rosen, Patkau Architects,  Thomas Heatherwick, and Herzog & de Meuron.

Affordable Housing: The Six, Los Angeles. Brooks + Scarpa Architects. Photo: TaraWucjik
La Petitte Maison do Weekend. Patkau Architects.Photo: Benjamin
Vacation Home, Joshua Tree. Design: Whitaker Studio.
Paperhouse, London, UK. Design: Thomas Heatherwick.
Paperhouse, London, UK. Design: Thomas Heatherwick.
Paperhouse, London, UK. Design: Thomas Heatherwick.
Floating Cabin in Sweden. Architect: Snøhetta.Photo: Johan Jansson.
Floating Cabin in Sweden. Architect: Snøhetta.Photo: Johan Jansson.
The Barrington Residence, Brentwood, Los Angeles. Architect: Eric Rosen.
The Barrington Residence, Brentwood, Los Angeles. Architect: Eric Rosen.
The Barrington Residence, Brentwood, Los Angeles. Architect: Eric Rosen.
56 Leonard St, New York, NY. Architect:Herzog & de Meuron. Photo: Iwan Baan.

CHALLENGES

World politics had been dominated by the ascent of Trump to power. He is a symptom that denotes a sick society suffering from branding brainwashing, widespread ignorance of the world’s reality and dogmatic beliefs, all of which have been brewed during the past half-century.

Solutions will demand both talking and action, such as:

  1. Containment of Trump until 2020 through the rule of law. All other alternatives are worse.

  2. Awareness of reality as-is. Documentarians have much to say and show on this.

  3. Action-oriented assumption of responsibility, particularly by millennials.

  4. A vision of a better world in healthcare, housing, justice, the urban environment, closing the gap of inequality and much more.

     The UN goals for sustainable development are quite detailed about 17 areas of challenge.

BOOKS

From the books I read during 2017, the ones that I found the most relevant are:

Homo Deus, by Yuval Noah Harari

Internal Ecology, by Darío Salas Sommer

No Is Not Enough, by Naomi Klein

TEACHING

Scheduled to give a six-week class on “How to Look at Architecture” at the Skirball Cultural Center and at OLLI/CSULB,  the classes will include the screening of architecture documentaries I made, to convey visually a better understanding of the importance of good design in our life.

"How to Look at Architecture" class at the Skirball Cultural Center, Jan. 16 - Fe. 20, 2018.

“How to Look at Architecture” class at the Skirball Cultural Center, Jan. 16 – Feb 20, 2018.

Renzo Piano and Kerry Brougher at theThe Samuel Goldwyn Theater

Architecture + Cinema + Hollywood Work-in-Progress: The Academy Museum of Motion pictures in Context

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Rendering of Academy Museum. Courtesy of Renzo Piano Building Workshop

The work-in-progress of the Academy Museum in Los Angeles, designed by architect Renzo Piano, is scheduled for opening in 2019. In “Architecture + Cinema + Hollywood”, the three are connected through images of the museum’s construction at the present time, historic and contemporary examples of architecture, mementos from classic movies, metaphors of Hollywood, and segments from my previous films.

We live immersed in architectural spaces throughout our lives. Filmmaking tells us stories through space, light, motion and human scale. The Acadamy Museum of Motion Pictures offers an opportunity to make tangible the connection between the two sisters’ arts.

 Both crafts have many things in common. They both are realized with the help of a team guided by a creator. On both disciplines, a spatial sequence is critical. In architecture, we perceive space as we move. In cinema, the spatial movement comes to us linearly, as may have been defined through editing.
Both disciplines interact with the other arts. Both must control sound, operate at different scales and deal with significant costs for their realization. Both create stages, one for everyday life, the other as a background for a story.
Architecture’s fundamental difference lays in its materiality. It deals with the law of gravity and with the nature of materials: strength, weight, texture, color, shape, durability. Yet the thinking process of architectural design and filmmaking is the same: we first dream, then we program/script, then we design/shoot, then we build/edit and finally we occupy/distribute. Criticism follows!

Architect Renzo Piano

Prof. Bruno Zevi

What does the museum’s “program/script” tell us? There are two main components: exhibitions and movie screenings. The exhibitions will be housed within the 1939 May Co. building, at the corner of Fairfax Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard. The main screenings will be presented in the new 1,000-seat state of the art theater.
To emphasize the contrast between the existing building and the theater, Piano chose to formalize the later with a sort of molded sphere “suspended in space,” mostly cantilevered, standing on mayor pillars. This approach reminds me both Michelangelo’s structural support of Saint Peter’s dome and John Johansen’s Mummers Theater in Oklahoma City, more than Bucky Fuller’s dome.
The overall context couldn’t be more eclectic. Within the LACMA campus, old and new “connect” only by adjacency. Michael Heizer’s “Levitated Mass” , reminding us that we are still standing on the Earth, is in total contrast with everything else. The Petersen Automotive Museum, at the opposite corner of the intersection, wraps around with metal ribbons a Bernard Tschumi-like red box, bringing to the scene a sort of caricature of adaptive-reuse. In a way, the whole area represents ultimate Los Angeles’ exiting disjunctions.

Using filmmaking techniques to communicate architecture, short of providing the physical experience of moving through space, can bring to the viewer much more than a succession of single frames. It can create associations with other places or stories, it allows for multiple perceptions in seconds, it can use drawings, photography, and art to illustrate a point. The film at the top of this blog tries to express that.

Central St. Giles Court, London
Weltstadthaus Köln
Metropolis Poster
The Shard, London
The Shard, London
The Shard, London
Marilyn Monroe, “Some Like It Hot” (1959)
Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg, “La Dolce Vita” (1960)
Marina Abramovic Scene at “The Great Beauty.” (2014)

Stranger Things

'>Netflix Night IDA's "Awards Spotlight" Night at Netflix, in Beverly Hills

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IDA’s “Awards Spotlight” event at Netflix’s quarters in Beverly Hills, organized by Amy Jelenko , was out of the ordinary. The spectacular staging was part and parcel of the panel’s presentation. While we listen to stories behind the scenes of four accomplished documentarians – Brian McGinn (Amanda Knox, Chef’s Table,) Ava Du Berney (13th,) Greg Whiteley (Last Chance U) and Ryan White (The Keepers) – moderated by IDA’s Executive Director, Simon Kilmurry,  the eye wandered through a multitude of lights, sounds and shapes. The catering added delight to the senses.

Documentarians are an extraordinary mix of artists-journalists with a passion for the truth, no matter how bitter that may be. Quite frequently they risk their lives to get the footage, of which a small fraction is distilled through long days of editing. A sample story was provided to us by John McDonald, director of “Mule,” now in post-production. Pilar Galvez also had interesting stories related to her Latin-American background. To observe a group like this in that kind of atmosphere was more than unusual: it was surreal.