What could be better than film, urbanism, architecture, and design? When film, urbanism, and design unite, we get powerful and insightful results: there’s La Haine, a French film that follows three young men in the banlieues of Paris; there’s Mon Oncle, that pokes fun at the absurdities of residential Corbusian inspired architecture; and more recently films like My Architect, where Louis Kahn’s son seeks to know his father’s work, and through his work, his father.
For those of you in the Seattle area this week, a heads up: the Northwest Film Forum (NWFF) is hosting its annual design film festival, ByDesign 2016 that features films exploring architecture, art, urban design, and other design-related themes. The festival runs for four days: April 14-17.
BYDESIGN 2016 TRAILER (COURTESY NORTHWEST FILM FORUM)
NWFF is screening the German film, Beyond Metabolism, which looks at the impact of Metabolism, an architectural post-WWII movement in Japan (that could be a distant cousin to Brutalist architecture with its imposing, monumental concrete forms) through the lens of Sachio Otani’s Metabolist 1966 International Conference Center in Kyoto.
Then there’s Getting Frank Gehry, that presents Gehry’s controversial and first Australian-built project: the one-year-old tree-house-inspired Dr Chau Chak Wing Building, which serves as the home for the University of Technology business school in Sydney.
Farther north, Strange and Familiar: Architecture on Fogo Island, delves into Todd Saunder’s architecture—an inn and artist studios that populate a rugged island in Newfoundland and Labrador in eastern Canada.
The Chinese film, The Land of Many Palaces investigates the intersection of urban relocation, development, real estate, ownership, and coal in China’s largest ghost city, Ordos City, located over 400 miles west of Beijing. Built by the government with the wealth of newfound Ordos coal deposits, officials are moving farmers living in the countryside to the newly developed urbanized area. “Neighbors and friends,” says a woman with a microphone in the movie trailer who appears to be a government representative addressing new residents, “We are trying to create a more civilized city.”
The festival opens with a film staring artist Tom Sachs, A Space Program, who will attend the Seattle premier. If you live closer to New York City and Los Angeles, the two cities will play host to architecture and design film festivals this fall (filmmakers: there’s an open call for submissions).
