Legendary documentary film "Torre David" as part of reSITE
Source reSITE
Publisher Tisková zpráva
13.05.2015 21:05
The Czech premiere of the film "Torre David" will be accompanied by two short films "Mumbai: Maximum City Under Pressure" and "MK's Upstairs Shack," produced at the award-winning studio of Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner from Urban-Think Tank (U-TT) based in Zurich and Caracas.
The films will be screened at the Světozor cinema in Prague on June 18 at 20:30, and tickets for the public will be on sale at the cinema box office. After the film, the world-famous architect and urbanist from New York, Michael Sorkin, will join its creator Brillembourg. The subsequent discussion about the films will be moderated by Helena Doudová, co-curator of the Baugruppe exhibition, which took place in the Prague gallery Kvalitář in the spring.
In a way, the third tallest building in Venezuela has been under construction for more than twenty-one years. The Torre David (originally called Centro Financiero Confinanzas) has an astonishing 45 floors and is located in the heart of Caracas's original financial district. It is unlikely that the building will ever be completed - definitely not in its original form. After its developer David Brillembourg died in 1993 and the financial group supporting its construction collapsed due to the Venezuelan banking crisis in 1994, the tower was left abandoned and became a magnet for squatters.
Since then, it has served as a constantly changing home for more than 750 families, forming a self-organizing community in what is referred to as a vertical slum. This community has withstood various powerful influences surrounding it and affecting its life. Its members have shown their resourcefulness and determination to make a home out of the ruin, even if only an uncertain and precarious one. The film "Torre David" prompts reflections on ways to create and develop new types of shared urban communities.
"Torre David" is the result of a film collaboration between U-TT studio leaders Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, who, along with members of the U-TT Chair from the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich, spent a year exploring the physical and social organization of this settlement in the repurposed ruin. With the support of the Schindler Group, U-TT Chair also focused on innovative design solutions for new models of vertical mobility.
Their research culminated in the book Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities, which was declared one of the best books of 2012 by the Financial Times. In the same year, the follow-up exhibition "Torre David/Gran Horizonte" at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition - Venice Biennale - won the Golden Lion for best exhibition.
Now U-TT brings this story to a Czech audience in its unprecedented film portrait of life inside the tower. Brillembourg and Klumpner call on their fellow architects to view the exploration of informal settlements around the world as a potential for innovations and experiments, aiming to put design in the service of a fairer and more sustainable future.
The films are part of the public program within the fourth edition of the reSITE festival and conference. The two-day international conference will take place at Forum Karlin from June 18 to 19.
