Thursday 18 August 2011

How Much Does Your Building Weight, Mr Foster?

This was preceded by a short Stick Climbing. An odd movie that starts with walking through a (German?) village, then the camera man climbs up a cliff with the aid of some bamboo sticks attached to the cliff-face. Nice view.

How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr Foster? looks at the work of Norman Foster, architect and cross-country ski enthusiast. (The movie is more the former than the latter.) Mr Foster has come up with some rather unusual designs, lots of curves and open spaces. Nice buildings, and his work is still going on despite some set-backs in his personal life.

That said, I would have liked a bit more analysis of the buildings. Why are they considered so impressive? We get to see them, briefly, and told that people like them... but why? What about them makes them so impressive? Do they fit the flow of air? Do the curves psychologically sooth people? Do people just have a fetish for lots of glass? What???

Nice movie, but it does seem to be aimed more at those that know the buildings and want to know the man, rather than a more general audience.


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