Celebrate the relationship between architecture and celluloid by viewing classic, contemporary and documentary films that spotlight the built environment, the architectural and design professions and the ever-mythical architect's ego.

 

The first night of the Architecture and the City film series features the traveling debut of Brilliant Simplicity: 15 Designers Research Collaborate Innovate, a short film created by Metropolis magazine that traces the many ways innovation can happen and features past Next Generation competition winners.

Following the film will be a conversation on the pressing need for research in design with Metropolis editor in chief, Susan S. Szenasy, and past Next Generation competition winners, including Virginia San Fratello, and Anton Willis, Kate Lydon, and Christina Seely of Civil Twilight.

Currently in production, Learning from Bob and Denise is a feature-length documentary by James Venturi that explores the complex and contradictory world of the architects, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. The film takes viewers on a journey from the couple’s early years to the present. Through interviews with Venturi and Scott Brown, their clients, colleagues, friends and critics, Learning from Bob and Denise aims to provide an understanding of Venturi and Scott Brown’s multilayered approach, relevant to both architects and non-architects alike. The evening also includes shorts by Bay Area filmmaker Benjamin Wood, among others.
 

This classic film by Jacques Tati follows Monsieur Hulot on his way to contact an American official in Paris. However, he gets lost in the maze of modern architecture which is filled with the latest technical gadgets. Caught in the tourist invasion, Hulot roams around Paris with a group of American tourists, causing chaos in his usual manner.

World-class architect Renzo Piano draws on nature to create a structure that defines a natural history museum for the 21st century. Combining Piano's signature transparency design with a green roof evoking its surroundings, San Francisco's new California Academy of Sciences provides a model for sustainability, and sets a benchmark for how people use, operate and interact with public buildings. The e" series debuted in 2006 with its first season of design, introducing viewers to the burgeoning sustainability movement among architects and designers worldwide.

The film will be followed by a panel discussion featuring members of the California Academy of Sciences design team in conversation about the building, which officially opens to the public on September 27th. The panel includes Jean Rogers, Principal, Ph.D, PE, LEED AP, Peter Lassetter, Principal, LEED AP of ARUP, and Mark Palmer, LEED AP, of the San Francisco Department of the Environment. The panel will be moderated by John King, architecture critic of the San Francisco Chronicle.

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