Day One - Friday (March 7)

Le Concorde

Director: Danielle Schirman

France/2007/26 min/French

Full Disclosure: I wanted to see this film not only because of the iconic nature of Concorde, which was the world’s only supersonic passenger jet in regular service, and because I’m a former pilot, instructor, and aviation aficionado, but because I flew on it in 1981 from London to New York. This documentary deals with Concorde from the element of design, starting with the classic engineer’s axiom of “form follows function” as it plays out in the aircraft’s sleek lines, complete with the usual banal stock footage of the history of aviation in a few minutes. Although there’s lots of old, grainy flyby and newsreel footage, the anchor is several artists’ conceptual animations using small models. Although Concorde was flown by British Airways as well as Air France, British participation in the project is mentioned only in the planning and construction. Despite this Franco-centric world view, not a bad effort, given the time constraint and theme, but it left me wanting a lot more. It did, however, show how the project was anchored in the 1950’s futurist conceit of travel as speed and elegance, superimposed on a 1960’s design aesthetic. Think of molded white melamine furniture and funky “computer” fonts.

Satolas TGV, Un monument à la campagne

Director: Catherine Adda

France/1998/28 min/French

Santiago Calatrava, the Spanish architect and sculptor, designed the Satolas-Lyon Airport TGV train station. Combining road access to the airport, platforms for trains stopping at the station and those not (and pass by at 300 km/h!), he designed an airy, open structure of flying arches in concrete and steel, capped in aluminum. Not only does it give passengers an expansive space, echoing the countryside and the airport, its butterfly/bird-wing/flower/funnel external appearance provides a visual stamp to the locale. The Montreal Metro had a different architect for each station’s design, resulting in fairly unique visual relief for passengers as they travel; with the Satalos station there’s a unique external design, as well.

Tours d’aujourd’hui et de demain

Director: Danielle Schirman

France/2006/52 min/French

Another study of the skyscrapers of the current generation and proposals for near future construction, concentrating on Paris, New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Dubai, with side stops in Barcelona and London. A Centre Pompidou production, the film centers on the work of French architects Jean Nouvel, Jacques Ferrier, Christian de Portzamparc and Paul Andreu, although there are interviews with a handful of non-French architects. With the release date of 2006, the WTC replacement towers and the Burj Tower weren’t really yet in the framework of discussion, which shows how fast the bar is being raised continuously in terms of design and height. There was some interesting discussion of the tension of Old Paris versus the new at La Defense, where the core of new office towers have sprung up in the last twenty-five years.