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"Must-See Design Documentaries\nAD's editors select ten essential films from the past decade dealing with architecture, design, and urban planning\nCharles &amp;amp; Ray Eames: The Architect and the Painter (2011)\n\n Together Charles and Ray Eames helped to revolutionize 20th-century design\u2014and not just with the chairs, tables, and storage units that have become synonymous with their name. What began as a desire to create quality yet mass-produced home furnishings\u2014\"the best for the most for the least\" in their words\u2014the Eames office, run a bit like a Renaissance studio, grew into one of the most creative firms in midcentury America. This film, directed by Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey, is a frank portrayal of the pair's professional and personal relationship, at times riddled with tension, and their tremendous contribution not only to furniture design but also film, photography, art, branding, and graphics. There's a reason why their work continues to resonate so strongly today. Shown as part of PBS's \"American Masters\" series, the film currently can be watched in its entirety at pbs.org. firstrunfeatures.com\n\n Charles and Ray Eames at home, circa 1970.\nHow Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster? (2010)\n\n Born on the wrong side of the tracks in Manchester, England, Norman Foster rose from humble beginnings to become one of the world's most famous architects and a British Lord. How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster? is an unsentimental look at the Pritzker Prize winner's career, narrated by Deyan Sudjic, director of London's Design Museum. Touching on Foster's days at Yale under Paul Rudolph and tutelage under Buckminster Fuller\u2014whose question to the impressionable up-and-coming architect gives the documentary its name\u2014the film uses breathtaking cinematography to capture Foster's best-known works: HSBC's Hong Kong headquarters, the reconstruction of Berlin's Reichstag, and the Millau Viaduct in France. A pilot himself, he transformed airport architecture with Stansted and, more recently, Beijing's mammoth Capital International Airport. Guided by a work ethic instilled in him by his blue-collar parents, Foster\u2014well into his seventies\u2014continues to cycle and compete in cross-country skiing marathons, while running a global practice that reached 1,400 employees before the market crash. He is a man who expects no less of himself than he does from his buildings. mrfostermovie.com\n\n Sir Norman Foster at his London office.\nObjectified (2009)\n\n The second film in Gary Hustwit's design trilogy (which includes 2007's Helvetica and last year's Urbanized), Objectified delves into the stories behind everyday products, ranging from vegetable peelers to iMacs, and examines the process from concept to finished item and the relationship between objects and their owners. Innovators such as Dieter Rams, Hella Jongerius, Marc Newson, and Apple's Jonathan Ive discuss their philosophies on design and the driving forces behind their work\u2014whether they are making an existing item better, creating a sustainable alternative, or inventing something completely novel. The film is a must-see for anyone interested in the often invisible hand of design in our daily lives. objectifiedfilm.com\n\n From left: The film's poster, and Tim Brown of IDEO.\nThe Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2011)\n\n This quietly devastating film begins with an architectural dream fulfilled: In the early 1950s, federal funding helped the city of St. Louis build the most ambitious public housing development in its history. Designed by George Hellmuth and Minoru Yamasaki (the architect of the World Trade Center), the 33 Pruitt-Igoe towers were radiant examples of Corbusian rationalism, houses in the sky for lower- and middle-income families. Two decades later they were literally in ruins, destroyed by the city in a radical move to stem the violence and crime that had turned them into prisons. What went wrong? Were modernist ideals to blame, as some critics suggested at the time? The Pruitt-Igoe Myth unpacks the story by looking at the complex relationship between issues of class, race, and public policy that influenced both the failure of Pruitt-Igoe and the fate of the post-World-War-II American city. Director Chad Freidrichs wisely gives former residents a voice here, too, and their stories are at the heart of the film. pruitt-igoe.com\n\n A half-demolished building in the Pruitt-Igoe complex.\nMy Architect: A Son's Journey (2003)\n\n Nominated for an Academy Award in 2004, Nathaniel Kahn's documentary traces his quest to learn about the father he knew only fleetingly by examining his works of architecture. Louis Kahn is described in the film by his friends and peers\u2014including Philip Johnson, Vincent Scully, I.M. Pei, and Robert A.M. Stern\u2014as short, ugly, willful, obsessive, and impatient. But there is more than meets the eye with Kahn. He led a secret life that included two illegitimate children with different women\u2014both of whom had worked in his office. Nathaniel, the youngest, was 11 when Kahn died bankrupt and alone at 73 in New York's Penn Station on his way back from Bangladesh, where he traveled to create the kind of timeless, monumental buildings he found too difficult to realize in this country. It's a touching, sometimes heartbreaking look at one of modernism's most rigorous and complex masters. myarchitectfilm.com\n\n From left: The film's poster and Louis Kahn with his son Nathaniel, circa 1970.\nSketches of Frank Gehry (2005)\n\n There's no doubting the star power of this widely seen documentary's subject, whose twin masterpieces, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, are among the world's most recognizable buildings. The film also had a famous director, the late Sydney Pollack, best known for movies such as Tootsie and The Way We Were, who asks at the outset, \"What's so hot about Frank Gehry? What's all the fuss about?\" But it's clear that the mutual admiration between these giants of their fields ran deep. Wielding a handheld camera and disarming average-joe questions, Pollack constructs an engrossing, candid portrait of Gehry's career and creative process, how his sketches and models become buildings\u2014\"a living thing,\" as the architect puts it. The film's talking heads include Gehry's rich and powerful clients\u2014Eisner, Ovitz, Diller\u2014a gushing Philip Johnson, even his therapist. Julian Schnabel, hamming it up in full caricature mode, wearing a robe and holding a snifter, delivers one of the best lines. Addressing a criticism often leveled at the Bilbao museum, he says that if the architecture \"does compete with the art, maybe that art isn't good enough.\" sonyclassics.com/sketchesoffrankgehry\n\n Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.\nUnfinished Spaces (2011)\n\n Commissioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in 1961, Cuba's National Art Schools in Havana were conceived as world-class training centers for artists, dancers, musicians, and actors. Though construction was halted in 1965, the complex has hosted young talents from across Cuba for 50 years, even as the modernist structures have fallen into ruin and buildings have become overgrown with vegetation. Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray's documentary examines the schools' creation and decay, offering a revealing portrait of architecture in post-revolution Cuba. Most poignantly, the filmmakers chronicle the efforts of the schools' architects\u2014Roberto Gottardi, Ricardo Porro, and Vittorio Garatti, all now in their 80s\u2014to restore and complete the campus after years of neglect and criticism. unfinishedspaces.com\n\n Havana's School of Ballet, designed by Vittorio Garatti.\nRem Koolhaas: A Kind of Architect (2008)\n\n Pritzker Prize and starchitect label notwithstanding, Rem Koolhaas enjoys a renown that reaches far beyond his field. Approaching his craft differently than most, the Dutchman sees architecture as a way of bringing creativity to the urban landscape while critically addressing conflicting ideas\u2014rationality versus irrationality, order versus chaos, transparency versus privacy\u2014that exist in today's developed world. This engaging documentary examines the groundbreaking work of Koolhaas's Rotterdam-based firm OMA and looks at how his theories are manifested in physical spaces, from the Casa da M\u00FAsica in Porto, Portugal, to the China Central Television headquarters in Beijing, China. It's a compelling portrait of a man who defies simple labels: writer, filmmaker, philosopher, and visionary. arthousefilmsonline.com\n\n Rem Koolhaas.\nRegular or Super: Views on Mies van der Rohe (2005)\n\n The German-born architect Mies van der Rohe was prone to long silences. Between sips on martinis and puffs of his beloved cigars\u2014habits his colleagues remember well\u2014the legendary modernist would sit for hours, staring out the window. Once when his grandson, also an architect, asked what he was doing, he simply replied, \"I'm working.\" Regular or Super explores, as Mies did, every detail of how people perceive his thoughtful buildings, supplemented by interviews with former students, scholars, and architects such as Elizabeth Diller and Rem Koolhaas. It is a terrific primer on his career, from his work in Germany (including a stint as director of the Bauhaus) to his stately masterpiece, the Seagram Building, to his final great work, Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie. Not to be forgotten: a lowly, but no less ingenious, Montreal gas station he designed in 1968, now a community center. The project makes a resolute argument for Mies's most enduring dictum, \"less is more.\" It also inspired the movie's titular question\u2014one whose answer, the filmmakers suggest, is far from simple. icarusfilms.com\n\n Mies van der Rohe in his Chicago apartment, 1964.\nVisual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman (2008)\n\n The celebrated architectural photographer Julius Shulman got his start, essentially by chance, shooting a Richard Neutra house for a friend. The architect admired Shulman's photo and took him under his wing, later introducing him to fellow modernists such as Rudolph Schindler, John Lautner, and Raphael Soriano. Shulman's career took off, and he ended up working around the world\u2014though he will always be most closely associated with the midcentury Southern California houses at the heart of this documentary, which is narrated by Dustin Hoffman and features interviews with Frank Gehry, Benedikt Taschen, and an articulately passionate Tom Ford. The irrepressible Shulman, who celebrated his 95th birthday during the making of the film and died a year after it premiered, demonstrates an impressive memory of decades-old episodes. He recalls how Lautner tried to stop him from shooting his famous twilight picture of the Kaufmann House and its pool in Palm Springs, only to take credit for it years later. The film's longest segment is devoted to Shulman's nighttime photograph of Pierre Koenig's glass-walled Case Study House #22, cantilevered above the lights of Los Angeles, with two women (girlfriends of architects in Koenig's office, Shulman reveals) seated inside. Veteran cinematographer Dante Spinotti even films a segment re-creating Shulman's iconic image, putting the photographer inside his own masterpiece. juliusshulmanfilm.com\n\n From left: The film's poster, featuring Shulman's 1960 photo of Pierre Koenig's Case Study House #22, and his 1964 image of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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