The Architecture and Design Film Festival Vancouver runs Nov 5-9 at the Hollywood Theatre and VIFF Centre. All films and tickets at the website.
Opening Night is Wed. Nov. 5 at the Hollywood Theatre from 7-9pm, with “Identity: A Czech Graphic Design Love Story”. Thanks as always to ADFF co-producers Anne Pearson & Leah Mallen (YVR) and Kyle Bergman (NYC).
1. Miralles
A piece on the brilliant and too short career of visionary Catalan architect Enric Miralles, who designed gestural, dynamic, and highly original architecture before passing away at 45 from a brain tumour. Miralles shared some fluidly dynamic spatial instincts with similarly exceptional peers such as Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry, in Miralles’ case, from an eastern Spanish point of view. Among other excellent works, Miralles designed the expressive Barcelona Olympic Archery Range (1991) and the competition-winning, radically adventurous Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh (2004).
2. The Big Brutal Quiz
A big, brutal Dutch film from filmmaker-architect Jord den Hollander, about the intersection of Brutalist architecture and film. The dutch angle on this piece makes sense; even the mighty Rem Koolhaas located his studio OMA in a building designed by Nederlander brutalist Huig Maaskant.
3. Lewerentz Divine Darkness
Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz, a contemporary of Alvar Aalto, designed buildings known for their poetic brutality and austere beauty, with a special reverence for light and shadow. When Swedish mothers say “du behöver inte Alvar Aalto, vi har Aalto Aalto hemma” they are typically referring to Lewerentz.
4. We The Others
The work of São Paulo-based Estúdio Campana is a bit surreal, a bit biological, a bit contemporary art, and a bit supernatural. Fernando and Humberto Campana, sons of an agronomist, quote nature through a cultural lens. Pigeonholing them as furniture designers is too reductive, as their work spans contemporary art, craft, furniture, lighting design, and spatial design. This 2024 production follows Humberto through the brothers’ life story and creative journey; Fernando passed away in 2022, so the film, like Miralles, serves as both tribute and inspiration.
A typical Studio Campana technique is accretion—layers of ropes, stuffed animals, or leather to form a chair. Materials, organic or man-made, often appear in clusters of ordered disorder, seemingly taking design cues from mussels on rocks, or mushrooms on the forest floor. Sometimes there are columns of light rising from what reads as a moss garden, or spatial screens that read like cross-sections through tree root tangles. The overall effect is uncanny, not so much Arts and Crafts, more adjacent to Alexander McQueen, Joseph Beuys, or Matthew Barney.
5. Tracing Light
This German film considers light as a material, focusing on architects and artists who sculpt light in their work. Which is interesting because film itself is a medium of sculpting light on silver halide crystals suspended in gelatin colloid emulsion. Anyway, these creatives make working with light light work.
6. The Space Architect
Big news for those who think architecture isn’t rocket science. Constance Adams, who trained as an architect at Harvard and Yale, then went to work for NASA designing spacecraft and prototypes for lunar and Martian habitats. We all want to make our parents proud, but dammit, Jim, this is a lot to live up to.
7. Living in a Piece of Furniture – Gerrit Rietveld’s Houses
Known for his Red and Blue Chair and his groundbreaking Schröder House, architect Gerrit Rietveld also designed chairs in other colours. His iconic 1924 house for socialite Truus “Truustfund” Schröder appears in every textbook of modern architecture.
8. Prickly Mountain and My Design Build Life
In the 1960’s a group of Yale-trained architects settled in Warren, Vermont, embracing the collaborative, hands-on practice of design-build architecture. Now this town of roughly 2000 has more architects and designers per capita than anywhere in the States. A chicken in every pot, an X-Acto cut in every thumb. Director Allie Rood brings us through her hometown, celebrating its unique and creative character.
9. At the Garden’s Pace
This film documents the year-long design-build of a bold new contemporary pavilion within a century-old botanical garden in Hilversum, Netherlands. The architects meticulously construct their own design, interact with residents, and integrate this new vision into its long-established context.
10. Identity: A Czech Graphic Design Love Story
What does a country’s design aesthetic reveal about its identity? According to this doc, it takes a Czech-American in a tartan suit to find out. Collector/auctioneer/tastemaker Nicholas Lowry czechs out Zlín, Brno, Litomyšl, and Pilsen, looking to buy a vowel and to introduce us to the graphic design of Alfons Mucha, Ladislav Sutnar, and Josef Váchal. To quote Maxine Lund in Being John Malkovich, “Czech please.“
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ADFF 2025/26 SEASON
- New York -Oct – 14 – 18
- Los Angeles – Oct 21 – 27
- Vancouver – Nov 5 – 9
- Toronto – Nov 12 – 15
- Mumbai – Jan 8 – 11
- Humanity in Architecture – Jan 30 – 31
- Chicago – Feb 18 – 21
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Derek DeLand is a design-oriented Registered Architect and a Member of the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada. He’s designed award-winning architecture of tall towers, urban tech hubs, entertainment, hotels, art schools, theatres, residential, Passive Haus, seniors housing, master plans, skateplazas, skateparks, public art and competitions. • With built work in BC, Canada, Seattle, UK, Mexico and even Paris, Derek has collaborated with a wide range of clients, from municipalities to high-profile developers to BC Housing. • Educated at U of Calgary and UBC SALA, Derek’s been featured in Migrating Landscapes for the Venice Biennale of Architecture, has an award from IOC IPC IAKS for sport architecture, awards for concrete design from BCRMCA and Ontario Concrete, and a Certificate of Recognition from the AIBC. • Also a writer, he’s been published in Architizer, Spacing and international design books and magazines, and has done public speaking in Los Angeles and the UK. • Derek’s architecture is idea-driven, highly creative, sculptural, movement-oriented, tectonic and experiential. • Check out Derek’s architecture at https://downspacecreative.com/architecture
