WellUrban

Personal reflections on urbanism, urban life and sustainable urban design in Wellington, New Zealand.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Celluloid architecture


These days it seem like there's a specialist film festival for every taste and interest: human rights, vegetables, silent films and even Phoenix dactylifera. There's even one for architecture buffs, and the Wellington season starts at the Penthouse this Friday.

The Jasmax Film Festival, subtitled "Celebrating Architecture", shows documentaries about individual architects and buildings, but also more general films about urbanism and sustainability. Of the films on show, the ones that sound most intriguing to me are Building the Gherkin (about Norman Foster's astonishing London skyscraper), Lagos/Koolhaas (which will no doubt feature Rem Koolhaas drooling all over Africa's maddest city) and Regular or Super (concentrating on Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, but with a broader interest in architectural language and the role of the architect in society).

It's a little known fact that Mies was fond of a Martini, which is not surprising given that drink's celebration of icy clarity and obsessive attention to detail. I wonder whether he believed that Less is More when it comes to Vermouth?

2 Comments:

At 4:23 pm, August 31, 2006, Anonymous Anonymous said...

while most Modern architects may well hold true to the dictum of Less is More, that never seems to apply when the subject is alcohol, or other people's wives...

 
At 9:08 am, September 01, 2006, Blogger Tom said...

Though in this case, less Vermouth means more gin...

 

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