Architecture on Film: Top 5 Flicks of the Architecture & Design Film Festival

The Architecture & Design Film Festival returned to New York with a fresh selection of films and expert panel discussions. Over the course of six days, audiences had the opportunity to see artful short films and feature-length documentaries exploring the successes, failures, and inspiration behind influential designers and innovative projects.

What the festival did best, though, was to highlight the strong connection between film and architecture. Like filmmakers, architects are visual storytellers, whose work is at its best when it digs deeply into the community it represents. The creative process behind making film, like the creative design process, requires careful observation, many drafts, and the ability to collaborate with co-producers, be they structural engineers or cinematographers. The measure of success, in the end, is how well a project inspires its audience.

Every architectural project or firm has its own cast of characters, setting, and final ending or finished product. The following films focused as much on the people and places involved in architecture as they were about the building themselves. Take a look at the five strongest films from the festival:

1. “Strange and Familiar: Architecture on Fogo Island”

Equally stunning architecture and natural landscape come together in this documentary treatment of Todd Saunders’ Fogo Island Artist Studios and Inn. Aside from panoramic shots of the Canadian island, the film explores the struggles of a small rural fishing community struggling to stay relevant in the global economy. The island’s tight-knit community becomes part of the financing, design, and construction of the artist studios and new inn meant to bring visitors to town. In the process of trying to reimagine Fogo’s future, they rediscover their own artistic heritage. Memorable local characters punctuate the story as we follow Saunders’ design thinking and reconnection with his Canadian roots. Constantly inspired by the island landscape, he refers to the studios as “viewfinders” and eloquently tells viewers, “Nature doesn’t need architecture, but we need nature.”

Fogo Island Artist Studiosby Saunders Architecture, Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada

2. “The Infinite Happiness”

Directed in the style of a personal video diary, “The Infinite Happiness” takes place in Bjarke Ingels’ Big 8 House on the edge of Copenhagen. The film is a series of vignettes woven together to tell the larger story of the Big 8 complex community. We follow the postman delivering mail, a group of little girls on a scavenger hunt, the self-appointed handy man who travels the passageways by unicycle, even a cat protecting the residents from unwanted mice.

Bjarke Ingels himself doesn’t appear in the film once. There is no discussion of the initial design and planning process, little talk of the budget, and no mention of Ingels’ other high profile projects. The film talks about the architecture by focusing only on the people who live within it. Their sense of community, pride in their homes, and openness to progressive design is palpable throughout the film.

The BIG 8 house’s pathways, spacious homes, and state-of-the-art facilities are redefining apartment living and social architecture. Take a look at the project:

8 Houseby BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group, Copenhagen, Denmark

3. “Ove Arup: The Philosopher Engineer”

Danish structural engineer Ove Arup’s unique academic background led him to reimagine the engineer’s role in the architectural process. A philosophy major, Arup was a dedicated humanist and sensitive, deep thinker. Feeling frustrated with philosophy’s ambiguities, he craved finite answers and turned to engineering. His diverse intellectual background colored his own approach; to Arup, structural engineering combined artistic vision with mathematical precision.

The film is told through interviews with his collaborators, who reflect on his most important projects, including Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House. His personality shines through their recollections and his impressive body of work. As his friends tell us, Arup encouraged employees to disagree with their higher-ups, to feel comfortable enough with authority to challenge the status quo and push their ideas. The progressive, democratic work culture he advocated for persists today.

Take a look at a few of Ove Arup & Partners’ more recent projects:

‘A’ House in Kisamiby Florian Busch Architects, Shimoda, Japan

Canary Wharf Stationby Foster + Partners, London, United Kingdom

Canopyby Ove Arup & Partners, MoMA/P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, N.Y., United States

4. “78 Hours”

Directed by Cole Phoenix, an undergraduate architecture student at Cornell, “78 Hours”was the standout winner of The Henning Larsen Foundation’s international architecture and film competition. The short film gracefully moves through the architecture of Rem Koolhaas’ Milstein Hall, home of the university’s architecture department. Moving to the tune of Chopin’s Waltz No. 7, the camera artfully weaves through space, time, and architecture to show empty hallways next to busy classrooms full of architecture students at work.

“78 Hours” is a reminder of how creative cinematography can effectively document great architecture. In order to capture his unconventional shots — without interrupting the flow of the story — Phoenix designed a tripod dolly to hold the camera. The film manages to convey the designer’s role as storyteller in only five minutes.

Milstein Hall at Cornell Universityby OMA, Ithaca, N.Y., United States

5. “The W.I.N.D. House”

Set in the Dutch countryside, this documentary follows the process of designing The W.I.N.D. House, a single-family home made for a local couple planning to adopt two children. The documentary begins with several individual interviews of the clients before introducing the viewer to architect Ben van Berkel of UNStudio. Instead of focusing solely on the architect’s vision, the film pays close attention to the couple’s aspirations for the space, showing how UNStudio customized solutions for their particular lifestyle.

The positive collaboration between architect and client is central to the film; the couple’s openness to progressive design, combined with Berkel’s ability to listen to their needs, yields a superb result. The W.I.N.D. House feels avant-garde in design, yet easily livable for a soon-to-be family of four.