The Art of Memory
Jane Sandeman | 02 February 2015 Review of ‘Suspended Sentences’ by Patrick Modiano “A Marcel Proust of our time” was how the Nobel Academy described Patrick Modiano, the French novelist who received the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, an award for conferring ‘the greatest benefit to mankind’. Given only a handful of his 25-odd novels have so far been translated into English, Modiano is not exactly well-known in the...
Film Review ‘The Big City’
Martin Earnshaw | 25 January 2015 The Big City (1963), directed by Satyajit Ray, is essentially a story of modernity. The superb opening scene traces the passage of a tram cable as it winds its way through Calcutta, a city which in the 1950s and 60s could be considered as India’s foremost modern city. Although this old Imperial Capital was soon to be eclipsed by Mumbai, at that moment, to be at the forefront of change was to be in...
Film Review: ‘City Visions’ #6
Matthew Bloomfield | 7 January 2015 The Airstrip: Decampment of Modernism, Part III. Dir. Heinz Emigholz, 2014 Heinz Emigholz’s ongoing meditation on architecture continues in this feature length piece, composed around the metaphor of a falling bomb. Between the time that the bomb is released and the time that it explodes, there exists a duality where the target remains intact but is doomed to destruction. What the audience...
Film Review: ‘Precise Poetry’
Louise Bjørnskov Schmidt | 05 January 2015 “I’m an architect! I can’t go through walls! I’m not a witch! All I can do with walls is break them down.” This quote by Lina Bo Bardi is not to be understood literally; Bo Bardi did not break many physical walls since she designed only a few buildings through her career. Still, Bo Bardi is today increasingly recognised as one of the most important architects in...
Review: ‘Constructing Worlds’
Felicity Barbur | 02 January 2015 Presenting Constructing Worlds: Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age at the Barbican in London always seemed likely to prove a good choice of venue. However, it wasn’t until visiting the carefully curated spaces of each photographer that I appreciated just how appropriate the Chamberlin, Powell and Bon designed complex would prove to be. After all, over the years the Barbican itself has been...
Film Review: ‘City Visions’ #5
Steve Nash | 2 October 2014 Megacities – Twelve Stories of Survival. Dir. Michael Glawogger, 1998 This film is a tour de force. Part documentary and part fictionalised account of the lives of those fighting to get by in the megacities of Mumbai, Mexico City, New York and Moscow, it is also a visual poem with a dream like qualitywhose images are intended to stay with the viewer for a long time. It is now part of the legacy of the work...
Film Review: ‘City Visions’ #4
Martin Earnshaw | 9 October 2014 Ecumenopolis: City without Limits, Dir. Imre Azem, 2012 When we think of a World City we think of a globalised hub like London where people from all over the world come to live, work or study. An Ecumenopolis gives the concept of the World City a differentmeaning. Although the term was coined in the 1960’s as an extrapolation of the rapid growth of cities, the idea of a city expanding to cover an...
Film Review: ‘City Visions’ #3
Josh Broomer | 7 October 2014 ‘Ecopolis China’, Directed by Anna-Karin Grönroos Anna-Karin Grönroos’s insightful documentary is dedicated to exploring two possible Eco-City projects; a state of the art eco-research city and an Eco-City in a single tower.Both are intended to accommodate 20,000 people and share the aim of creating, in the jargon, a cleaner, brighter and more sustainable future. Yet in their design and construction...
Film Review: ‘City Visions’ #2
Matthew Bloomfield | 2 October 2014 ‘La Haine’, Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine follows the lives of three young men in the 24 hours after a riot tears through their home in the banlieues of Paris. The film was inspired by rioting in 1993,sparked by the ‘accidental death’ of Makome M’Bowele who died while in police custody. He was shot while hand-cuffed to a radiator. La Haine‘s three...
Debate: Are Cities Good For Us?
Louise Bjørnskov Schmidt | 1 October 2014 Are cities good for us? The answer seems obvious. Throughout history humanity has flocked to cities which are often celebrated for their dynamism, increased opportunities and the economic benefits that they can offer.As pointed out by the Institute of Ideas Dave Bowden in his introduction to a packed audience at London’s Barbican, clearly this debate could be a very short affair: Yes, cities...
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