AIA San Francisco presents a new monthly film series investigating issues of architectural concern within contemporary, documentary and avant-garde film.

All films are free and start at 6:00 pm. Popcorn and refreshments provided.
Location: AIA San Francisco, 130 Sutter Street, Suite 600, San Francisco

Making the Modern (2003)
March 29, 6:00 pm
In 1997, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth set out to build a new home, the second largest modern art museum in the United States after New York's MOMA. The museum selected visionary new modernist, Tadao Ando as their architect. Practically unknown in America, Ando has won every major international architecture prize and is a celebrity in his native Japan. But the question remained whether his Eastern-influenced designs would translate to this most Western of towns.

This compelling documentary follows the design and construction of this museum masterpiece, Ando's largest and most ambitious work outside of Japan. Shot on location in Japan, Germany, Washington DC and Fort Worth, the film captures the beauty of Ando's architecture in its many settings and follows the design team as they test the building's specialized lighting structures. Architects Richard Meier and Frank Gehry and sculptor Richard Serra help to tell the story of this remarkable building. Directed by Harry Lynch.

Photo: Museum of Modern Art Fort Worth; Tadao Ando, architect

Building the Gherkin (2005)
April 26, 6:00 pm
Can a single building impact the career of an architect, the image of a global community and the skyline of a big city?

Just a month and a day after the disastrous attack on the World Trade Center in New York, the first steel beam of a new tower is erected in London. The one question on everybody’s mind: was it the right decision to build a new iconic tower in the midst of London’s financial district, on a site that has already been bombed before?

The 40-story steel and glass tower sparked further controversy. Norman Foster, one of Britain’s most visionary architects, called his design for the new Swiss Re London headquarters, “radical—socially, technologically, architecturally and spatially.” In fact, its size and shape are so radical that it was immediately nicknamed “the erotic gherkin.” Directed by Mirjam von Arx.

Photo: Nigel Young / Foster and Partners

For the past four years Koolhaas and students from The Harvard Project on the City have come to Lagos regularly to research the particular urban environment produced by explosive population growth. The Project on the City is framed by two concepts: first, academia's bewilderment with new forms of accelerated urbanization in developing regions and the maelstrom of redevelopment in existing urban areas; second, the failure of design professions to adequately cope with these changes.

Lagos Wide & Close follows Koolhaas during his research in Lagos over a period of two years as he wanders through the city, talking with people and noting problems with water, electricity and traffic. Instead of judging the city as doomed, he interprets this "culture of congestion" positively, thereby creating a completely new concept of the big city. Directed by Bregtje van der Haak.

Sketches of Frank Gehry (2006)
June 28, 6:00 pm
An intimate portrait of architect Frank Gehry by his long-time friend Sydney Pollack, Sketches traces the renowned architect’s life and creative struggles from his youth to his colossal artistic achievements, which include some of the most striking buildings of the modern era.

Starting with the original sketches that Gehry made for each of his monumental projects, the film explores the architect’s process in transforming these abstract sketches and three-dimensional models, most often made from cardboard scraps and scotch tape, into towering buildings of titanium and glass, concrete and steel, wood and stone. Directed by Sydney Pollack.

Dark Passage (1947)
July 26, 6:00 pm
This classic 1947 thriller features Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in a story about a convict who escapes from San Quentin to hunt down his wife’s true killer. Filmed in San Francisco, Dark Passage features the Malloch Apartment Building, a unique four-story Art Deco building, as well as vintage footage of the Russ Building, Mark Hopkins Hotel, and Waldo Tunnel when it had only one bore. Directed by Delmer Daves.

 Die Architekten (The Architects) (1990)
October 25, 6:00 pm
In this somber, finely-drawn portrait of life in East Berlin in the final days of the Communist regime, the viewer is witness to long panning shots of the city’s ugly, factory-like public housing. Shot from moving cars, these views of block after block of anonymous rectangular buildings evoke a joyless environment in which the imagination is systematically stifled and where people live in a state of chronic, low-grade depression.

The film revolves around Daniel, an idealistic architect in his late thirties, who, like many others of his generation, is deeply frustrated by life under the Communists yet tolerates it. Hired to design a miniature city on the fringes of Berlin, he fools himself into thinking that he can counteract the prevailing gloom with a cheerful, more innovative approach. Working with a hand-picked team of friends who were classmates in architecture school, he comes up with a design that incorporates rooftop gardens, modern sculptures, architectural variety and generous breathing space. Daniel’s absorption in the project costs him his marriage. And when he submits his plans to the authorities, they denounce his innovations as frivolous and expensive and insist on compromises. Directed by Peter Kahane.

Mon Oncle (My Uncle) (1958)
November 29, 6:00 pm
Hulot lives in a colorful, overpopulated Parisian neighborhood and spends his days waiting to pick up his adoring nephew from school to escort him to his parents' ultra-modern house. Filled with gadgets—some activated only to impress the neighbors—the house seems designed specifically to frustrate Hulot, who unwittingly disrupts its operations at every opportunity. Concerned about his future, Hulot's relatives makes unsuccessful attempts to find him gainful employment and pair him off with a neighbor. The nearly dialogue-free film allows for director Jacques Tati's unmistakable sight-and-sound gag set pieces. Directed by Jacques Tati.