Ron Fricke served as cinematographer and editor on the famous nonverbal film Koyaanisqatsi (1982), then directed a couple documentary shorts including Chronos (1985), a nonverbal IMAX documentary. After his work on Chronos, Fricke designed an IMAX-compatible camera with the capacity to shoot motion-controlled images, a revolutionary concept in the IMAX industry. He then created Baraka (1993), a planetary odyssey filmed in 26 countries on 6 continents, shot across a time span of 14 months.
Peter Rice (1935–1992) was perhaps the most influential structural engineer of the twentieth century. Among the hundreds of buildings he worked on, his most notable masterpieces include the Sydney Opera House, the Pompidou Centre, the Menil Collection, and Lloyd's of London. A director of Ove Arup & Partners and a partner in Paris-based RFR, in 1992 Peter Rice was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal for Architecture.
EAMES: THE ARCHITECT AND THE PAINTER. Charles and Ray Eames are among the most important American designers of this century. They are best known for their groundbreaking contributions to architecture, furniture design, industrial design and manufacturing, and the photographic arts.
For five seasons, with Danny Forster as its host and producer, Build It Bigger investigated pioneering architectural and engineering projects around the world. Danny’s mission in each episode was to make complex architectural content accessible to a wide audience. Build It Bigger became the highest rated show on the Science Channel (where it moved after its first season), and won a 2010 Directors Guild of America award.
Abu Dhabi’s five-star Yas Hotel is the first to span a Formula 1 racetrack. Two hotel buildings on either side of a bridge are linked by a curvilinear 217m grid-shell structure that incorporates a striking illuminated steel and glass veil. Installed with approximately 5,000 custom-designed light fixtures, the outside of the building can be remotely programmed with vibrant lighting and media sequences that illuminate the racetrack and give the development a dramatic brand image.
Con motivo de la Exposición Internacional de Barcelona de 1929, Mies van der Rohe construyó el Pabellón alemán –de vida efímera, desmontado meses después y reconstruido en 1986–, considerado por muchos la obra arquitectónica más importante del siglo XX. Mediante el uso combinado y geométrico del vidrio, el acero cromado y los diferentes tipos de piedra (muros de mármoles verdes y de ónice dorado, muros y suelos de travertino), el edificio propone una nueva concepción racional del espacio arquitectónico. En esta conferencia, el arquitecto y catedrático Luis Fernández-Galiano recorre la trayectoria del arquitecto alemán, desde la llegada a Berlín, sus colaboraciones con la diseñadora Lily Reich, la relación con el constructivismo y el neoplasticismo, y el exilio a Estados Unidos.
Elogio de la Luz, serie documental que hace un retrato de la arquitectura española contemporánea: episodio sobre las obras de Rafael Moneo, incluyendo el Museo de Arte Romano de Mérida y El Kursaal de San Sebastián.
A Constructive Madness wherein Frank Gehry and Peter Lewis spend a fortune and a decade, end up with nothing and change the world
Written by Jeffrey Kipnis, the Wexner Center's interim chief curator of exhibitions and curator of architecture and design, A Constructive Madness captures the human drama surrounding an incredibly significant, but ultimately unrealized, architectural project. Peter Lewis, chair of Ohio-based insurance giant The Progressive Corporation, hired architect Frank Gehry to design a house in suburban Cleveland.
Over the next nine years, the project grew in scope, ambition, and budget and became a touchstone for the architectÌs most experimental ideas. The Lewis house (and an enigmatic piece of red velvet) played a central role in transforming Gehry's style and his attitude toward the use of the computer as a creative tool in design.
Written by Jeffrey Kipnis, the Wexner Center's interim chief curator of exhibitions and curator of architecture and design, the film premiered in August at a benefit screening presented by the Aspen Filmfest. To Kipnis A Constructive Madness is "not a lecture or a lesson, but an entertaining story, a drama expressed in the medium of architecture." (61 mins.)