Celebrate the relationship between architecture and celluloid through these documentary films, which spotlight the built environment, the architectural profession and the ever-mythical architect’s ego.

Every Wednesday in September at 6:00 pm
Free, registration required.
San Francisco Main Library, Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco

The film series is generously made possible in part by the LEF Foundation.

Community Partner: San Francisco Main Library

The Last Wright
September 1, 6:00 pm
Free; Registration required.
San Francisco Main Library, Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco
 

Screenshot © Lucille Carra

In 1908, when Frank Lloyd Wright was considered the most innovative architect in Chicago, he traveled to Mason City, Iowa, to design a unique, mixed-use city block—a bank and an adjoining hotel facing a park. Soon scandal and tragedy would ruin his career, but the Park Inn Hotel would remain as one of his last Prairie style structures. Through rare archival footage, period music and a look at stunning Wright masterpieces, this film offers a provocative, ironic tapestry of an American century, tracing the life, death and rebirth of a Midwest downtown through the prism of The Park Inn. During the 20th century, The Park Inn faced alterations and degradation while Mason City dealt with a Dillinger Bank robbery in the 1930s, an economic downturn in the1960s and the label “Porn City” in the 1970s. In an effort to promote heritage tourism, the city struggled to fund renovations of The Park Inn in the 1990s and attempted an economic revival with a $20 million tribute to the musical comedy, “The Music Man,” based on Meredith Willson’s boyhood in Mason City.

Directed by Lucille Carra
Produced and written by Garry McGee and Lucille Carra
Cinematography by Antonin Chundela
Edited by Joan Baran, Brian Cotnoir, Jakub Sykora, Vladimir Zan

55 minutes/color/documentary

Make No Little Plans: Daniel Burnham and the American City (1.5 LUs)
September 8, 6:00 pm
Free; Registration required.
San Francisco Main Library, Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco
 

Few individuals have had more impact on the American city than architect and planner Daniel Hudson Burnham. In the midst of late nineteenth century urban disorder, Burnham offered a compelling concept of what a civilized American city could look like that provided a powerful framework for Americans to make sense of the world around them. But not all would agree with his vision. Burnham’s firm built some of the first skyscrapers in the world, directed construction of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition that inspired the City Beautiful Movement and created plans of Washington, DC. San Francisco, Chicago, Cleveland and Manila all before the profession of comprehensive urban planning even existed. In fact, some say he invented it. At the center of it all was the idea of a vibrant urban community. Among his firm’s best known works are the Flatiron building in New York, Union station in Washington, DC and The Field Museum in Chicago.

Directed by Judith Paine McBrien
Produced by The Archimedia Workshop in consultation with Kartemquin Films

50 minutes/color/documentary

Infinite Space:
The Architecture of John Lautner
September 15, 6:00 pm
Free; Registration required.
San Francisco Main Library, Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco
 

© | Sara Sackner

Infinite Space traces the lifelong quest of visionary genius John Lautner to create “architecture that has no beginning and no end.” It is the story of brilliance and of a complicated life—and the most sensual architecture of the 20th century. As a young man, Lautner broke from his mentor, Frank Lloyd Wright, and went west to California to forge his own architecture. His life was marked by innovation and inspiration, endless battles with building codes, an accidental leap into the epicenter of pop culture, bitterness at lost opportunities, and finally, monumental achievement. Lautner was idolized by young modernists, criticized by academics, and beloved by the clients who worked side by side with him to build their houses. It was a life in pursuit of beauty.

Directed by Murray Grigor
Produced by Sara Sackner and Anna Thomas
Cinematography by Hamid Shams
Edited by Sara Sackner
Composed by Elliott Goldkind
Consultants: Frank Escher and Nicholas Olsberg

90 minutes/color/documentary

A Necessary Ruin and Other Architectural Shorts
September 22, 6:00 pm
Free; Registration required.
San Francisco Main Library, Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco
 

© Evan Mather

Upon its completion in October 1958, the Union Tank Car Dome, located north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was the largest clear-span structure in the world. Based on the engineering principles of the visionary design scientist and philosopher Buckminster Fuller, this geodesic dome was, at 384 feet in diameter, the first large scale example of this building type. A Necessary Ruin relates the powerful, compelling narrative of the dome’s history via interviews with architects, engineers, preservationists, media, and artists; animated sequences demonstrating the operation of the facility; and hundreds of rare photographs and video segments taken during the dome’s construction, decline, and demolition. The evening also features The Image of the City and So What?, among other architectural shorts, followed by a conversation with the filmmaker.

Directed by Evan Mather

50 minutes/color/documentary

FLOW
September 30, 6:00 pm
Free; Registration required.
San Francisco Main Library, Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco
 

© Irena Salina

Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary investigates what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century—The World Water Crisis. Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel. Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question “CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?” Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround.

Directed by Irena Salina
Produced by Steven Starr
Cinematography by Pablo de Selva and Ms. Salina
Edited by Caitlin Dixon, Madeleine Gavin and Andrew Mondshein

84 minutes/color/documentary

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