Shelter: December highlights
Self sufficiency, solitude and life in the arctic, on Shelter this month.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under Streaming, Subscription
Here are the December highlights for architecture & design streaming platform Shelter.
Deeds Not Words (56 mins) USA 2019 (Available from December 7)
A documentary film chronicling the life story of Robert P. Madison, preeminent architect, orator & patron of the arts. This is a story about a man who has been instrumental in building Cleveland’s new waterfront yet at one time was denied an opportunity to even apply to one of the city’s schools of architecture. This is a true American success story, narrated by Christopher Mann (Lovings, Creed II), and recounted in parallel with the significant achievements in civil rights for African-Americans during his lifetime. As a young man he received a Purple Heart as an officer in WWII, and was engaged to Coretta Scott. Later, degrees from Case Western and Harvard Universities, would be the beginnings of tremendous business and political success.
Infinite Space: The Architecture of John Lautner (90 mins) USA 2008 (Available from December 14)
A documentary feature film, tracing the lifelong quest of visionary architect John Lautner to create “architecture that has no beginning and no end.” It is the story of brilliance and of a complicated life – and the most sensual architecture of the 20th century. Featuring Frank Gehry, Sean Connery and Frans Escher.
Last Exit Alexanderplatz (56 mins) Portugal/ Germany 2015 (Available from December 21)
A film about the ongoing, but politically disputed and so far unsuccessful attempt to transform the former East-German Alexanderplatz into a high-end, Manhattan-like business district. Through interviews with the architects and politicians, who were involved in the competition held for the square in 1993, the film highlights the dogmatism and insensitivity that characterized much of planning in post-reunification Berlin. But it also depicts a square, which despite the failures and missed opportunities of the 1990s, seems to have regained its foothold in the city.
Northbound (11 mins) Israel/ USA 2020 (Available from December 28)
Self sufficiency, solitude and life in the arctic. Northbound tells the stories of people who choose to live in remote places under the harsh conditions of the arctic.