Architekturtage Film Special: Koolhaas HouseLife, F 2008

Koolhaas HouseLife

F 2008, Original mit englischen Untertiteln
Regie: Ila Bêka/Louise Lemoîne

Further Information

LIVING ARCHITECTURES
A series of films by Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine

“Living Architectures” is a series of films that seeks to develop a way of looking at architecture which turns away from the current trend of idealizing the representation of our architectural heritage. The cult of perfect, disembodied forms entirely devoid of people, inevitably leads to a break-up between architecture and living space. Through these films, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine put into question the fascination with the picture, which covers up the buildings with preconceived ideas of perfection, virtuosity and infallibility, in order to demonstrate the vitality, fragility and vulnerable beauty of architecture as recounted and witnessed by people who actually live in, use or maintain the spaces they have selected.

Thus, their intention is to talk about architecture, or rather to let architecture talk to us, from an "inner" point of view, both personal and subjective. Unlike most movies about architecture, these films focus less on explaining the building, its structure and its technical details than on letting the viewer enter into the invisible bubble of the
daily intimacy of some icons of contemporary architecture. Through a series of moments and fragments of life, an unusually spontaneous portrait of the building would emerge. This experiment presents a new way of looking at architecture which broadens the field of its
representation. The buildings they have chosen are mainly of architectural renown, and designed by the so called "star architects" who were awarded the Pritzker Prize.