The man behind the ugliest buildings in the world
In one of the episodes of the Alternatino program on the Comedy Central channel, modern architects were ridiculed for their pretentiousness, arrogance, and isolation from reality. With humor, by the way, Comedy Central is doing well: the channel once released the famous TV series South Park.
The comedy sketch is built according to the laws of documentary films about the difficult life of the creator. The protagonist Gerhardt Fjuck talks about his work, invited guests also share their opinions, shots of houses flash by, and somewhere in the background dramatic and inspiring music plays. At the same time, the character's speech is filled with truisms about inspiration, the realization of dreams and "creating a [new] world", and the projects leave much to be desired. Gerhardt Faka is played by Arturo Castro, a Guatemalan comedian best known for his Broad City TV show.
Fak is famous for designing “all AT&T buildings without windows,” as well as “three recognizable buildings in New York,” LaGuardia Airport, Penn Station, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal. These are all real-life structures that are not particularly beautiful, but their authors, of course, are different. To top it all off, the hero of the psvodocumentary film also came up with "the world's first ground basement." The show has collected numerous clichés about modern architects. There is also senselessly sublime rhetoric, Le Corbusier-style glasses, minimalist interiors and an original (or dubious) source of inspiration - the trash can.
Modernist life
The idea belongs to Clay Rodrigues, founder of the Sao Paulo-based architecture firm Debaixo do Bloco; Seriema Filmes studio helped with the implementation. This short is a story about everyday life in the pearl of modernism - Brasilia. Recall that the city has a very unusual fate: it was built from scratch in the late 50s, in 1960 it became the capital of Brazil, and in 1987 it was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The general plan of the city was drawn up by the architect Lucio Costa, and the main administrative and public buildings were built by Oscar Niemeyer.
In Brasilia, modernist architecture lives on not only in “specially designated areas” - it also exists in the everyday life of ordinary citizens. This is what the filmmakers tried to portray. First, the city is shown from a bird's eye view: from above, neatly arranged block-type houses are clearly visible. Then the camera drives up to one of the apartments - you can already see the details of the situation and its inhabitants. By the way, the house involved in the shooting was restored by the Debaixo do Bloco bureau.
Phobos
The authors of the video, the Moscow bureau SKNYPL, explore the nature and role of fear in the formation of physical and metaphysical boundaries. The movie was first shown at the London Architecture Festival in June this year, the theme of which was "Borders". Phobos (from the Greek for fear) is a kind of installation film set in Moscow. But in general, the authors explain, this is a story about any major city.
What really comes first - fear or border? Where does the physical border begin and the metaphysical border ends, is there a difference between them? What is the role of urbanism in creating and overcoming fear? These questions are devoted to 11 minutes of the film.
"Phobos" speaks of the dominant role of the border - it is both a marker that outlines the characteristics of the subject and object, and their protective function. Ordinary fears become labels for these obstacles, especially metaphysical ones. Based on the metaphysics of human nature, the city becomes an endless fractal of visible boundaries.
