2022 Autumns Movie Nights
Fiona Mckay
As the mild autumn set in London this year, we returned to Stephen Street, one of the homes of the BFI for the much-loved continuing education event in the AIA UK calendar: The Movie Nights!
INSIDE PIANO
On a Tuesday night on the 18 of October, we resumed the Movie Night Series with a film by two of the foremost architectural artists and filmmakers: Beka and Louise Lemoine. We screened the fifth project of the Living Architectures series, Inside Piano, which is composed of three films on three symbolic buildings of Renzo Piano's career. A visit throughout the prototype-building of the Centre Pompidou. An immersion in the soundproof world of a submarine floating in the depths of the Parisian underground. A journey aboard a luminous magic carpet of a highly sophisticated architectural machine. A humorous, caustic and quirky point of view, as is typical of Beka & Lemoine.
An exciting debate followed the movie screening, with movie attendees discussing what happens after buildings are occupied, specifically the use and maintenance of buildings. The critique in this film is given by the people who work and maintain the three buildings, and viewers get very interesting and honest views, without grandstanding.
The BFI’s home on Stephen Street displays a curious array of movie mementoes…
GEHRY’S VERTIGO
To wind up the 2022 Movie Night Series, on the 8th of November we went a few steps back in the Beka & Lemoine documentary collection and screened the third project of the Living Architectures series, Gehry's Vertigo. This documentary offers to the spectator a rare and vertiginous trip on the top roofs of the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao. Through the portrait of the climbing team in charge of the glass cleaning, their ascensions, their techniques and difficulties, this film observes the complexity and virtuosity of Frank Gehry's architecture.
This film was akin to a few other Beka & Lemoine documentaries we have screened in the past, in that there was hardly any dialogue. The viewer observed the architecture, and the complexity of working with it as well as maintaining it. Attendees discussed how complex architectural forms affect the use and maintenance of buildings. Some found the complexity of Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao very costly and ridiculously frustrating to navigate & maintain. Other attendees found it refreshing that the city of Bilbao is forced to continuously maintain this building, leaving it looking almost as new as the day it was built, and the maintenance of this building in turn providing a continuous stream of work to more locals.
What an exciting end to our 2022 Movie Night Series!
On behalf of the AIA UK, many thanks to all those who attended the various screenings throughout the year, and for the wonderful debates that ensued. I wish you all a lovely Christmas break and look forward to welcoming you back in February 2023 for the next Movie Series.
Written by: Chris Musangi AIA
