16.08.2010
Piano + Metropolis
This thursday night at the Rotterdamse Open Air Cinema: the screening of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis with live music
18.06.2010
Cinematic Rotterdam
Floris Paalman, programmeur van de Rotterdam Classics, promoveert dinsdag 22 juni op ‘Cinematic Rotterdam, the times and tides of a modern city’. Read more »
16.05.2010
Film + architectuur in Den Bosch
On May 17 onward there will be several interesting screenings in the Verkadefabriek in Den Bosch concerning architecture. This monday it’s Many words for modern of Jord den Hollander, a film screened at the 2007 edition of our AFFR festival.
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09.05.2010
Shopping malls on film
The Barbican in London organises screenings of architecture films on a regular basis. Read more »
28.04.2010
Rotterdam premiere
Living Architectures of Beka & Lemoine has its Dutch premiere on Thursday April 29, the filmmakers will be present at the screening. Make your reservation now at the NAi.
08.03.2010
The opportunity to build
Screening of ‘an opportunity to build’ (1985) by Rob Klaasman and Maarten Kloos.
06.02.2010
The Complete Metropolis
Only 200 meters missing, as the newspaper announced. In 2008 the only (almost) complete reel of Fritz Langs’ Metropolis was found. Friday Febrary 12 live on Arte TV. Read more »
02.02.2010
Oscar nomination for Logorama
Yes, we recognize the beauties, because the short animation film Logorama we screened at our festival is nominated for an Academy Award! We keep our fingers crossed for the people of H5, especially Nicolas Schmerkin.
The work of Squint Opera
Interview with Jules Cooke
by Cordula Zeidler
Squint Opera are a young company. Founded in 2002, they produce films on architecture projects and masterplans, including such diverse projects as the London Olympics and the regeneration of Jeddah. And they also have a more artistic strand: Squint Opera have created stunning hyper-real still images, such as a series of imaginary scenes of London in 2090, after water levels have risen and flooded the city. I spoke to co-founder Jules Cocke about their work, and about the challenges of communicating architecture by means of the moving image.
Cordula Zeidler: Your films often have a strong narrative. Does architecture need a story to go with it in order to be communicated?
Jules Cooke: Architects can find it hard to communicate their own projects and do them justice. But often what they are doing is quite incredible – it’s interesting, and there are lots of aspects to it. But sadly, in many cases a project ends up being summed up and represented by a single, sometimes very technical image or model, and it’s impossible to understand the back story and the thought processes that the architects have gone through to get to the result. That is where our format and the moving image really helps.
Initially you did films on projects that had already been built, but much of your current work includes buildings that are still on the drawing board. How do you engage with architects – do you start by trawling through their drawings?
We sit down in the beginning to iron out the brief. Often it’s a case of simplifying, summing up and crystallizing the architects’ main thought processes into something simple that can be communicated via film. A classic example is our first film about Bradford which is a film about a whole masterplan. At the outset we were confronted with an eighty-page document. We distilled it into the phrases Picture a city – What if you knock down all the concrete that no one likes? What if you founded a new park? And what if the park inspired a new architecture? It was a tremendous simplification of the masterplan but this was its essence, and it was something that everyone in Bradford could understand.
Many of your films are done to promote big prestigious projects, like the Olympic stadium in Stratford, or the regeneration and enlargement of Jeddah. Is there an element of propaganda to your work?
Yes, definitely. But I think there is a positive aspect to this – we articulate as precisely as possible a best-case scenario for a project, and this sets a standard to which the project can be held when it’s finished.
Your films don’t contain a spoken narrative; there is no voice-over. But you do use the written word, to illustrate the main ideas behind a project. Do you think architecture relies on the written word for explanation?
Individual buildings can be communicated without words but when a project is on a larger scale, say a masterplan, there are sometimes more complex links that in a four-minute film need a device to help the viewer. But at the end of the day words are there to support the images, not the other way round.
Are there debates with architects about the use of drawings – are they keen you incorporate them in your work?
Not so much. But architects are sticklers for detail, and we often debate the degree of realism in our films – how much detail do you show? Realism can be astonishing, and we have done a couple of things recently which are incredibly detailed and realistic, and that makes a lot of sense to architects. Developer clients again can be different. While client Urban Splash don’t like ‘real’ at all, a lot of our Middle Eastern clients absolutely love it. Personally, I probably enjoy doing more abstract stuff – it brings in the unexpected.
This interview was shortened and previously published in A10 #29 Oct/Sep 09. A number of Squint Opera films can be seen in the Program Pre Architecture Shorts. In the foyer on the 1st floor is the installation of Doodle Earth.
Dit interview is ingekort en eerder gepubliceerd in A10 #29 okt/sep 2009. Het aantal films van Squint Opera is te zien in het programma Pre Architecture Shorts. In de foyer op de 1e verdieping staat de installatie Doodle Earth.
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19.06.2010
Newsletter
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29.10.2009
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23.10.2009
Filmposters
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