The Richardson Olmsted Campus, a former psychiatric center and National Historic Landmark, is seeing new life as it undergoes restoration and adaptation to a modern use.

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No understanding of the modern movement in architecture is possible without knowledge of its master builder, Mies van der Rohe. Together with documentation of his life, this film shows all his major buildings, as well as rare film footage of Mies explaining his philosophy. Phyllis Lambert relates her choice of Mies as the architect for the Seagram building. Mies's achievements and continuing influence are debated by architects Robert A.M. Stern, Robert Venturi, and Philip Johnson, by former students and by architectural historians. Mies is seen in rare documentary footage.

Living Memories is a documentary film that traces the history of the director’s neighborhood and native country, Haiti, through a personal and engaged perspective. Brick by brick, through encounters and wanderings throughout Port-au-Prince’s neighborhoods, archival photos, graffiti, and animations, the filmmaker introduces us to architect Léon Mathon and the residential architecture of the early 20th century. Over the ruins of her family home, Dominique, the director's mother, an architect like her father and grandfather before her, searches through her memories and significant places for traces of the past and the history of her country. Many of her landmarks are no longer there. From this tragedy arises a quest — a need to reconnect memory and history to understand the present better. The filmmaker follows her mother during her journey, capturing her reflections and conversations and documenting them to bring memories back to life.

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Celebrating the splendor and grandeur of the great cinemas of the United States, built when movies were the acme of entertainment and the stories were larger than life, as were the venues designed to show them. The film also tracks the eventual decline of the palaces, through to today’s current preservation efforts. A tribute to America’s great art form and the great monuments created for audiences to enjoy them in.

The documentary tells the story of Sydney Opera House architect Jørn Utzon's unique gift, brought to the world with the unending support of Lis, the love of his life. His story is told by the people who were closest to him: his children, close colleagues and friends, who share their open, honest anecdotes, and experiences of him as an architect and a man. The film is a portrait of a devoted humanitarian and a sensitive and loving soul.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Modern Masterpiece, Unity Temple is an homage to America’s most renowned architect. The film pulls back the curtain on Wright’s first public commission in the early 1900’s to the painstaking efforts to restore the 100 year old building back to its original beauty. The dedicated team of historians, craftspeople, members of the Unitarian congregation and Unity Temple Restoration Foundation reveal the history of one of Wright’s most innovative buildings that merged his love of architecture with his own spiritual values. The film intersperses the architect’s philosophies with quotes narrated by Brad Pitt.

In 1919 an art school opened in Germany that would change the world forever. It was called the Bauhaus. A century later, its radical thinking still shapes our lives today. Bauhaus 100 is the story of Walter Gropius, architect and founder of the Bauhaus, and the teachers and students he gathered to form this influential school. Traumatised by his experiences during the Great War, and determined that technology should never again be used for destruction, Gropius decided to reinvent the way art and design were taught. At the Bauhaus, all the disciplines would come together to create the buildings of the future, and define a new way of living in the modern world.

On 20 October 1973, the Sydney Opera House was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II. From conception to completion, it had taken more than 15 years and over $100 million dollars. In the years since its completion, the Sydney Opera House has become one of the most identifiable of Australia’s icons - ranking with the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Uluru, the koala and kangaroo - and is considered by many to be among the world's great architectural masterpieces.

A historical documentary documenting the rise, function, and abandonment of a 17 story building that once housed The Rochester Psychiatric Center. This film tells the story of the building through historical footage, interviews of former staff and patients who recount their memories of the behemoth facility while also exploring the abandoned building as it is today.

5000 years ago the ancient Elamites established a glorious civilization that lasted about three millennia. They created marvelous works in architecture and craftsmanship. These works of art depict the lifestyle, thoughts, and beliefs of the Elamites.

The history of the Warsaw Ghetto (1940-43) as seen from both sides of the wall, its legacy and its memory: new light on a tragic era of division, destruction and mass murder thanks to the testimony of survivors and the discovery of a ten-minute film shot by Polish amateur filmmaker Alfons Ziółkowski in 1941.

Kingdom of Granada, al-Andalus, 14th century. After recognizing that his land, always under siege, is hopelessly doomed to be conquered, Sultan Yusuf I undertakes the construction of a magnificent fortress with the purpose of turning it into the landmark of his civilization and his history, a glorious monument that will survive the oblivion of the coming centuries: the Alhambra.

For centuries, the Great Pyramids have fascinated Mankind. Patrice Pooyard's The Revelation Of The Pyramids reveals what lies behind the greatest of archaeological mysteries: a message of paramount importance for humanity. From China to Peru, from Egypt to Mexico, through the world's most enigmatic and most beautiful sites, the director has spent 6 years meeting eminent scientific specialists and verifying his discoveries. The result will shake the teaching of history to its very core, and revolutionize Egyptology entirely. A great odyssey along a breathtaking route climaxes in a revelation as unexpected as it is staggering.

"Chair Times" charts a course through an ocean of chairs. In the focus are 125 objects from the Collection of the Vitra Design Museum. Arranged according to their year of production, they illustrate development from 1807 to the very latest designs straight off the 3D printer, forming a timeline to modern seating design. The film features many people whose vocations involve design and who are experts in the field, such as designers Hella Jongerius, Antonio Citterio and Ronan Bouroullec, architects and collectors Arthur Rüegg and Ruggero Tropeano, architect David Chipperfield, Director Emeritus of MAK Vienna/Los Angeles Peter Noever, Mateo Kries, Director of the Vitra Design Museum, Vitra Design Museum curators Amelie Klein, Jochen Eisenbrand and collection curator Serge Mauduit. And your guide through the history of chairs is Rolf Fehlbaum, Chairman Emeritus of Vitra.

Southern California’s Coachella Valley, including the communities of Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs, boasts hundreds of extraordinary midcentury modern homes, public buildings and commercial structures. Modern designers such as William F. Cody, Albert Frey, William Krisel, John Lautner, Richard Neutra, R.M. Schindler, Donald Wexler, E. Stewart Williams left their collective mark on this desert paradise. Desert Utopia: Mid-Century Architecture in Palm Springs traces the history of modern architecture in Palm Springs from the first bold forays into modernist design to the preservation challenges facing the region today. Director Jake Gorst’s film features rare archival images and footage as well as interviews with historians, homeowners and the architects who helped create this mecca of modernism.

The war zone of a dystopian multiplayer shooting game is used to embark some urban explorers on a winter walk, avoiding the combats whenever possible, as peaceful observers, inhabitants of a digital world, which is a detailed replica of Midtown Manhattan.

One of the most significant cases in European archaeology is the grave of the shaman woman of Bad Dürrenberg, a key finding of the last hunter-gatherer groups. From a time when there were no written records, this site was first researched by the Nazis, who saw a physically strong male warrior from an ‘original Aryan race’ in the buried person. It was, in fact, the most powerful woman of her time. The latest research shows that she was dark-skinned, had physical deformities, and was a spiritual leader. The documentary – using high-end CGI and motion capture – compares the researchers of the Nazi era, who misrepresented and instrumentalised their findings, to today’s researchers, who meticulously compile findings and evidence, and use cross- disciplinary methods to examine and evaluate them. It also substantiates the theory of the powerful roles women played in prehistoric times. The story of this woman, buried with a baby in her arms, still fascinates us 9,000 years after her death.

Secluded from view by nine-meter-high walls and composed of 980 buildings, the Forbidden City in Beijing is the largest imperial palace ever built in the world. Three majestic structures form its center and host the city's ceremonies, each of which is considered an architectural masterpiece. In 1406, construction of the Forbidden City was launched at the initiative of one of China's most powerful sovereigns and founder of the Ming dynasty: Yongle. Endowed with divine power, the construction has already resisted more than 200 earthquakes.