Brno: Film Evenings with Architecture IV.

Two-Day Film Festival on Architecture

Art Cinema in Brno, Cihlářská 643/19

December 2 – 3, 2010

The civic association CENTER FOR ARCHITECTURE, in collaboration with the Brno Cultural Center, invites all film and architecture enthusiasts to the Art Cinema in Brno on Thursday, December 2, and Friday, December 3, 2010, for the fourth annual two-day festival of films on architecture. American films by director Michael Blackwood will have their Czech premieres: Kenneth Frampton will guide us through the work of Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa in the film "From Metabolism to Symbiosis," and in the film "New Modernists," he will present six selected personalities of contemporary European architecture. Films from domestic production, "11 Layers of Ideal" and "Space of Silence," portray the past and present of Czech architecture. We will also offer the audience a gripping double portrait of the cities of Berlin and Beirut in the short experimental documentary "Berlin Beirut."


PROGRAM:

Thursday, December 2, 2010

18:30

11 Layers of Ideal
(Czech Republic, directed by: Andrea Prenghyová, 2002, 58 min)
A sad yet humorous documentary about the past and present of the Collective House in Litvínov. How do its current inhabitants view this modernist experiment of vertical living?

20:00

Kisho Kurokawa - From Metabolism to Symbiosis
(USA, directed by: Michael Blackwood, 2007, 58 min)
Narrated by Kenneth Frampton. A portrait of the internationally renowned Japanese architect who incorporates Buddhist ideas into his works, which are a symbiosis of Eastern and Western forms of modernism aimed at achieving intercultural architecture. This documentary follows his major architectural achievements in the cities of Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nara, Osaka, Berlin, Paris, Chicago, and New York. Kurokawa passed away in 2007.

Friday, December 3, 2010

18:30

Berlin Beirut
(Germany, directed by: Myrna Maakaron, 2003, 23 min)
“Beirut has six letters, Berlin also has six letters.” Both Berlin and Beirut have been occupied, destroyed, and reconstructed throughout history, and their residents still speak of “the West and the East.” This documentary erases the differences between two cities, gaining new urgency in the current political situation. A personal testimony from a Beirut native living in Berlin.

Space of Silence
(Czech Republic, directed by: Marie Šandová, 2004, 33 min)
A documentary about the construction of a Trappist monastery in Nový Dvůr by architect John Pawson.

Schaulager
(Switzerland, 2006, 30 min)
The elite architectural duo Herzog & de Meuron discuss the construction of the “art storage” Schaulager in Basel. This documentary was made on the occasion of the “Schaulager” exhibition of these architects.

20:00

New Modernists
(USA, directed by: Michael Blackwood, 2007, 58 min)
Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz, Kristian Gullichsen, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, Hans Kollhoff, Jean Nouvel, and Eduardo Souto de Moura. The film is narrated by leading architectural theorist Kenneth Frampton. It presents an interesting selection of European architecture. Critic Kenneth Frampton explores the works of this group of architects, from Seville to Finland, their understanding, and interaction with the ideas of architects Aalto, Saarinen, and Mies to create a new European identity.


Supported by: Czech Architecture Foundation, Statutory City of Brno
Main partner of the evening: XELLA CZ, s.r.o.
Partners: Brno Cultural Center, Faculty of Architecture at the Brno University of Technology