The Man Who Can't Get Enough of Architecture: Nişan Yaubyan

Buenos Aires

This is a short documentary about the old City of Buenos Aires and the new one. It’s an observational piece where the old photos of the same places invite us to live in the old Buenos Aires for a few minutes.

Rocinha 76/96

1996

The camera goes back through the alleys and alleys of the community, leading the viewer to compare, with simultaneous shots of 76 and 96, the little or almost nothing that was accomplished, the neglect of the State, the abandonment over the 20 years. Finishing with a virtual image of the colored facades, as part of the proposed urbanization.

Le Corbusier

1967 · ★ 10

Making a documentary on Le Corbusier is not easy, because he is undoubtedly the architect most familiar to the general public but also the most unknown. If most people know his great achievements, such as the Cité radieuse of Marseille, the pavilions of the Cité universitaire de Paris or the Tourettes convent, many are unaware of his works in Moscow, Rio de Janeiro or Chandigarh. Roy Oppenheim pays a vibrant tribute to Corbusier, dismissing the criticisms and darker facets of the character. It presents the career of this pioneering architect, as well as his thinking, the essential principle of which was aimed at the development of human beings and the balance of society. Light, space and greenery are integrated into his large futuristic cities, because according to him the eyes of the inhabitants should be drawn into the distance and not into their neighbor's bathroom.

In retrospect

2025 · ★ 4

Immigrant workers build a shopping mall for the upcoming 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. In 2016, nine people with migrant backgrounds are killed in a racist attack at the same mall.

Beyond Eternity

2024

An exploration of architecture in the context of climate change, resource scarcity, circular strategies, real estate speculations and refugees crisis, framed within the context of the second edition of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial.

Structures of Marvel: Medieval Paris

2021

In the heart of Paris, Île de la Cité once featured one of the most majestic palaces of medieval times: The Palais des Rois. Built in the early Middle Ages, only two parts of this grandiose palace remain: The Sainte-Chapelle, the largest and most daring palatial chapel of the time; and the Conciergerie, a medieval room of impressive dimensions, known for having served as a prison and housing the jails of Marie-Antoinette.

Big Time

2017 · ★ 5.5

Big Time gets up close with Danish architectural prodigy Bjarke Ingels over a period of six years while he is struggling to complete his largest projects yet, the Manhattan skyscraper W57 and Two World Trade Center.

Kamenná sláva

1938

No synopsis available.

I will make up a song and sing it in a theatre with the night air above my head

2019

Egypt's only modernist architect Hassan Fathy (1900-1989) was committed to ecology and sustainability in his architecture. This film takes us with slow steps, in still images, to two villages he created. Fathy's historically grounded, forward-looking designs prompt us to reflect on the past as well as contemplate new solutions for the future.

Ztracený architekt Ernst Wiesner

2020 · ★ 6

No synopsis available.

Empire City

1985 · ★ 9

A film essay contrasting the modern metropolis with its "golden age" from 1830-1930, with the participation of some of New York's leading political and cultural figures. Made at a time when the city was experiencing unprecedented real estate development on the one hand and unforeseen displacement of population and deterioration on the other. Empire City is the story of two New Yorks. The film explores the precarious coexistence of the service-based midtown Manhattan corporate headquarters with the peripheral New York of undereducated minorities living in increasing alienation.

Soviet Bus Stops

2024 · ★ 9

“There’s a bus stop I want to photograph.” This may sound like a parody of an esoteric festival film, but Canadian Christopher Herwig’s photography project is entirely in earnest, and likely you will be won over by his passion for this unusual subject within the first five minutes. Soviet architecture of the 1960s and 70s was by and large utilitarian, regimented, and mass-produced. Yet the bus stops Herwig discovers on his journeys criss-crossing the vast former Soviet Bloc are something else entirely: whimsical, eccentric, flamboyantly artistic, audacious, colourful. They speak of individualism and locality, concepts anathema to the Communist doctrine. Herwig wants to know how this came to pass and tracks down some of the original unsung designers, but above all he wants to capture these exceptional roadside way stations on film before they disappear.