Everybody Wants to See Architects
November 3, 2003
This exhibition features recent videos and older archival
films about some of the most influential architects of the twentieth
century,
from Frank Lloyd Wright to Frank Gehry. While many artists have
tried, with varying degrees of success, to render architecture
in moving
images, these works offer a unique perspective on the architects
themselves, who are seen either at work, in formal interview,
or through the eyes of peers and critics. Illuminating portraits
of
Wright, Louis Kahn, and Paul Rudolph are accompanied by three
new documentaries having their New York premieres: A Constructive
Madness,
about Gehry, Two of a Kind, about Philip Johnson, and Lagos/Koolhaas,
about Rem Koolhaas.
The greatest architects of the modern era
have been distinguished as much by their boldness of character
as by the buildings they
have created. They have been uncannily sophisticated in using
the media
to magnify their architectural messages and mystique. As an
observer in Two of a Kind wryly notes, “Everybody wants to
see architects.”
Organized by Terence Riley, Chief Curator, Department of Architecture
and Design, and Joshua Siegel, Assistant Curator, Department of Film
and Media.
. 1953.
USA. Cultivating his legend as an American master, Wright discusses
his childhood and education, his influences, and the virtues of
his organic architecture in this interview with Hugh Downs, made
for NBC’s Wisdom series. 30 min.
. 1983. USA. Directed by Bob Eisenhardt. Paul Rudolph expanded
the International Style in such influential projects as the Southern
Massachusetts University campus, the Tuskegee Institute Chapel, and
the controversial Yale Art and Architecture Building. This documentary
depicts the evolution of Rudolph’s work over four decades,
and concludes with remarkable scenes of the architect sparring with
a client over the final design of Emory University’s William
R. Cannon Chapel. 29 min.
. 2002. The Netherlands.
Directed by Bregtje van der Haak. After decades of military rule,
Lagos, Nigeria, suffers from rampant violence, mass poverty, and
dysfunctional public services. In 2000, the Dutch architect Rem
Koolhaas traveled to Lagos with students from The Harvard Project
on the City to study the problems and potential of an urban center
undergoing chaotic upheaval. 55 min.
Program 114 min.
. 1998. The
Netherlands. Directed by Bregtje van der Haak. A portrait of the
media-savvy architect Philip Johnson, of his remarkable staying
power through decades of evolving aesthetics, and of his legacy
as embodied in and perceived by the next generation of architects,
including David Childs, Rem Koolhaas, and Peter Eisenmann. In Dutch
and English, English subtitles. 60 min.
. 2003. USA.
Directed by Jeffrey Kipnis, Tom Ball, Brian Neff. Narrated by Jeremy
Irons. In 1986, insurance magnate
Peter Lewis commissioned Frank Gehry to design his Cleveland home.
Nine years and eighty million dollars later, the house, which was
to have become a mansion/museum complex, remained unbuilt. This riveting
documentary offers a rare glimpse of a building in its unmaking—a
process that nonetheless led Gehry to ideas manifested in later projects
like Guggenheim Bilbao. 63 min.
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