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Biologist Janine Benyus explores nature as a model for reinventing our world. Journeying globally, Biocentrics unveils the origins and principles of biomimicry, inspired by 3.8 billion years of natural innovation. Benyus, a charismatic activist, connects knowledge, cultures, and initiatives that prioritize the continuity of life on Earth. With a transdisciplinary approach, she proposes a common agenda and…

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Designer and architect Charlotte Perriand left her mark on the 20th century. Free-spirited and politically engaged, she designed revolutionary furnishings and participated in the invention of modern dwellings that were in harmony with both their inhabitants and their environment. Pioneer in the Art of Living is a notebook of memories, giving an up-close look at…

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Irish designer Eileen Gray built a refuge on the Côte d‘Azur in 1929. Her first house is a discrete, avant-garde masterpiece. She named it E.1027, a cryptic marriage of her initials and those of Jean Badovici, with whom she built it. Le Corbusier, upon discovering the house, became intrigued and obsessed. He later covered the…

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Fashion designer Amy Powney of cult label Mother of Pearl is a rising star in the London fashion scene. Raised off-the-grid in rural England by activist parents, Amy has always felt uneasy about the devastating environmental impact of her industry. When she wins the coveted Vogue award for the Best Young Designer of the Year,…

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Green Over Gray explores the green architecture revolution through the seminal projects of Emilio Ambasz, a pioneer in the debate on climate impact. This film illustrates how, for forty years, Ambasz has redefined the relationship between humans and their environment, foreseeing a vision of nature as the fulcrum of a historic change. Featuring exclusive interviews…

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Every house carries the spirits of those who lived there and those yet to come. We are all marked by the architecture of the homes we live in. Lovely Villa is the apartment building where the filmmaker grew up, studying to become an architect. Designed by Charles Correa, this LIC colony represents an imagination of…

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Starchitect Bjarke Ingels makes the impossible possible. Making a Mountain follows the progress of his ambitious project CopenHill, the world’s cleanest waste-to-energy plant, with a rooftop ski slope as the icing on the cake. A megalomaniac complex in which BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) spectacularly unites recreation and industry, two worlds far apart up to now.…

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Architect Eliot Noyes was one of the leading pioneers of modern design during the mid-century, post-war boom in the United States. Educated by Walter Gropius at Harvard, Noyes did more than anyone to align the Modernist design ethos to the needs of ascendant corporate America. His impact on companies like IBM paved the way for…

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Director Nathaniel Kahn barely knew his father, but many throughout the world did. He was renowned architect Louis Kahn, who designed noteworthy buildings in California, Texas and even Bangladesh. Nathaniel explores his father's past, interviewing architects such as Frank O. Gehry, as well as members of the multiple families started by the philandering Louis. What…

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In the neighborhood of Manshiyat Nasr in Cairo, the community of Zaraeeb collected the city’s trash for decades and developed the most efficient and highly profitable recycling system in the world. Still, the place is often perceived as dirty, marginalized, and segregated. Tunisian artist eL Seed and his team responded to this perception by creating…

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In 1967, at the end of a career spanning more than six decades, which included the design of the Seagram Building in New York, the Lake Shore Drive Apartment Buildings in Chicago, and the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, architect Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) designed a simple gas station near Montreal. The story of that…

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The now-demolished council estate Robin Hood Gardens often occupies opposing positions within the architectural imagination. Was Alison and Peter Smithson's 1972 brutalist contribution to the London cityscape a misunderstood masterpiece or a well-intentioned failure? Fifty years on, filmmakers Thomas Beyer and Adrian Dorschner capture the building in all its glory right before the wrecking ball…

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Austrian-born and educated, R.M. Schindler laid the foundation for what is now considered the California lifestyle of indoor-outdoor living. This documentary explores his richly complex work, with its influences from the turn of the 20th century Vienna, the early work of Frank Lloyd Wright, the pueblos of Taos. It is an investigation into Schindler’s philosophy…

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Soviet Bus Stops accompanies Canadian photographer Christopher Herwig on his decades-long bus stop treasure hunt across the former Soviet Union. Herwig journeys from Ukraine to Uzbekistan, Armenia to Far Eastern Siberia, looking for the fascinating architectural marvels that are Soviet-era bus stops. His journey covers over 50,000 kilometers and shows us the high caliber of creativity…

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Geoffrey Bawa is widely considered one of South Asia’s most influential modern architects. In The Genius of the Place, director Afdhel Aziz introduces us to five of Bawa’s projects through his own personal connection to the work. We encounter an ocean fortress, a jungle palace, groundbreaking private homes, and the country estate where Bawa’s ashes are…

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Austrian graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister is doing well. He lives in New York, the city of his dreams, and he has success in his work, designing album covers for the Rolling Stones, Jay-Z and the Talking Heads. But in the back of his mind he suspects there must be something more. He decides to turn…

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After 30 years, extraordinary architects Thom Mayne and Robin Donaldson return to a pivotal site in their careers. 2.5 years to design, 2.5 years to build, the Crawford House in Montecito, California, emerged as a house of ideas and one of the world’s most widely studied pieces of residential architecture. The House takes us on an exploration…

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In The Mies van der Rohes, filmmaker Sabine Gisiger introduces us to the many women who impacted the life of world-renowned architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Drawing on a private archive of footage, photos, and documents, the film retells the story of this iconic architect as remembered by his eldest daughter, Georgia. *This film…

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The Pavilion On The Water is a cinematic journey into the world of Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa and his passion for Japanese culture. Japan, to Scarpa, was an inspirational universe. It is also the place where he eventually died in 1978, at the height of his career, while retracing the steps of wandering poet Matsuo Bashō.…

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The film tells the story of B.V. Doshi’s journey from European modernism of the 1950s to the architecture of the present. We visit with him the Indian buildings of Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn, whose designs Doshi executed as a young architect, and talk to him about his teachers. We experience Doshi developing new projects…