The 10 Best Architecture and Design Films
Kyle Bergman, founder of the Architecture & Design Film Festival, offers his insider picks for the best design movies of all time
By Anne Quito, Superscript November 21, 2013If you’ve ever caught yourself on an endless Netflix scroll spiral, then you’re familiar with that debilitating feeling caused by too many choices. With today’s bounty of films dedicated to the subject of architecture and design, the spectrum can be bliss or blight. We turned to Kyle Bergman, founder of the country’s largest film festival dedicated to architecture and design, for expert guidance. A trained architect, Bergman has seen over a thousand films since the Architecture & Design Film Festival began in 2009, previewing an average of 250 submissions a year.
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“The best films portray both the human and design story,” Bergman told Designers and Books. “In a certain way, still photography seems to have taken the human element out of architectural imagery. I think the film medium is able to bring this back—people engaging with spaces and environments.”
Presented in alphabetical order, (“ranking is hard, they’re all great in different ways”) Bergman shares an annotated insider’s crib sheet on the ten best feature-length films about architecture and design.
Antwerp Central
By Peter Kruger
Bergman: "This is a film about a train station. It starts slow, you’re not sure where you’re going at first but the revelation is wonderful. There’s also this element of magical realism, it’s not just a story of the building but the evolving history and culture connected to it."
Calatrava, God Does Not Throw Dice
By Catherine Adda
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Bergman: "I like this film because the director is able to explain Calatrava’s thought process vividly. There have been other films about Calatrava but this presents a real understanding. I love that part of it."
Citizen Architect - Samuel Mockbee And The Spirit Of The Rural Studio
By Sam
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Elena Barthel
Andrea Oppenheimer Dean
Timothy Hursley
Bergman: "This film showcases the design build process. It shows the architect Sam Mockbee empowering his students to use design as an agent for social change even in small, subtle ways."
Garbage Warrior
By Oliver Hodge
Bergman: "I like this one because it talks about a maverick architect, Mike Reynolds. He was a loose cannon, a bit of a troublemaker but intensely passionate about his work and this film captures it all."
Helvetica
By Gary Hustwit
The Book
Bergman: "Can you really make a whole movie on a font? This was a surprising one. It’s a design story that engages the audience from beginning to end. Gary told a great story."
Infinite Space - The architecture of John Lautner
By Murray Grigor
Bergman: "Beautifully shot. It’s not easy to show architecture well. This one is just seductively beautiful."
Monument to the Dream
By Charles Guggenheim
Bergman: "This is the story behind how the St. Louis Gateway Arch came to be built. We know how this story ends but the director is able to keep us at the edge of our seat throughout — is it going to make it, is this thing going to be built?. It’s a great example on the power of dramatic tension in storytelling. Nominated for an Academy Award. A classic."
My Architect
By Nathaniel Kahn
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Jochen Eisenbrand
Stanislaus von Moos
Bergman: "It’s great not just because Louis Kahn is a great architect. This is about a son’s search for his father, a personal film with a universal human story."
Sketches of Frank Gehry
By Sydney Pollack
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Bergman: "With scenes shot with hand held camera, this is a portrait of Frank Gehry by his longtime friend Sydney Pollack. This was perhaps as much about Gehry as it is about the great director/actor. This is one of the few, if not the only documentary that Pollack directed."
Unfinished Spaces
By Alysa Nahmias and Ben Murray
Bergman: "This is a film about architecture and politics portrayed with such an even hand. It portrays the rise and fall of Castro through a building. This was screened at the Miami International Film Festival and the Havana Film Festival and was loved in both cities—an amazing feat considering political context."
The Architecture & Design Film Festival celebrates films on design and architecture and with the mission of deepening the conversation among diverse audiences around it. The annual festival was held in New York City last month and travels to Los Angeles on March 12-16, 2014 and Chicago on April 24-28, 2014. Kyle Bergman is its founder and director.
Announcements
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy by John Lobell
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy
By John Lobell
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: June 2020
Noted Louis I.Kahn expert John Lobell explores how Kahn’s focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy.
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn by Harriet Pattison
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn
By Harriet Pattison
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: October 2020
An intimate glimpse into the professional and romantic relationship between Harriet Pattison and the renowned architect Louis Kahn. Harriet Pattison, FASLA, is a distinguished landscape architect. She was Louis Kahn’s romantic partner from 1959 to 1974, and his collaborator on the landscapes of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and the F.D.R. Memorial/Four Freedoms Park, New York. She is the mother of their son, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.
Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes
Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes
By Per Olaf Fjeld and Emily Randall Fjeld
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Published: October 4, 2019
A new and personal reading of the architecture, teachings, and legacy of Louis I. Kahn from Per Olaf Fjeld’s perspective as a former student. The book explores Kahn’s life and work, offering a unique take on one of the twentieth century’s most important architects. Kahn’s Nordic and European ties are emphasized in this study that also covers his early childhood in Estonia, his travels, and his relationships with other architects, including the Norwegian architect Arne Korsmo.
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context by David Raizman
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context
By David Raizman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Published: December 2020
An innovative approach to graphic design that uses a series of key artifacts from the history of print culture in light of their specific historical contexts. It encourages the reader to look carefully and critically at print advertising, illustration, posters, magazine art direction, and typography, often addressing issues of class, race, and gender.
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian by Rick Poynor
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian
By Rick Poynor
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 2020
A comprehensive overview of the work and legacy of David King (1943–2016), whose fascinating career bridged journalism, graphic design, photography, and collecting. King launched his career at Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, starting as a designer and later branching out into image-led journalism, blending political activism with his design work.
Teaching Graphic Design History by Steven Heller
Teaching Graphic Design History
By Steven Heller
Publisher: Allworth Press
Published: June 2019
An examination of the concerted efforts, happy accidents, and key influences of the practice throughout the years, Teaching Graphic Design History is an illuminating resource for students, practitioners, and future teachers of the subject.
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