Wanted Creativity

Wanted Creativity

Documentaries on design and government

Film programme
Filmhuis Den Haag
Thursday 17, Friday 18, Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 June

Designers and architects often work commissioned by the government. On the other hand there are designers and architects that develop their own ideas and initiatives and offer them to the government because they feel something could be done differently or could be improved. For instance 'Plan the impossible' from 1975, in which Hendricus Wijdeveld proposes to move the whole city into one apartment block and let people live and work at this location, meaning the space between cities is reserved for recreation and fun. You can admire his utopia together with three other international documentaries from the 17th until the 20th of June at the Filmhuis, The Hague. Each documentary will be introduced by a speaker.

Bauhaus, the face of the 20th century
Introduction by architect Rainer Bullhorst
Thursday June 17, 19.30h
This stunning documentary looks at the development of the Bauhaus and at the key figures involved in it, including the founder Walter Gropius, his successor Mies van der Rohe, László Moholy-Nagy, and Josef Albers. The program also sets the history of the Bauhaus in the context of the political unrest and economic chaos of the Weimar Republic in Germany. The program features numerous experts including Christopher Frayling of the Royal College of Art, architectural historian Charles Jencks, and Dr. Peter Hahn, Director of the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin. Former students discuss their time at the Bauhaus, and the eminent architect Philip Johnson tells how it influenced his work. The program contains rare archival footage of the Bauhaus at Dessau and looks at the architecture of Chicago, much influenced by Mies van der Rohe, who emigrated there after the Bauhaus was shut by the Nazis in 1933.

Lustron - The house America’s been waiting for
Introduction by design historian Timo de Rijk
Friday June 18, 19.30h
For the amount of about 8.000 dollar you were able to buy a prefab metal/enamel house (without land) in 1947 in the United States; called Lustron House. Carl Strandlund was the inventor of this 'General Motors' of the housing market and produced 2560 of these houses. In 1950 his business went bankrupt, but movie producers Bill Kubota, Ed Moore and Bill Ferehawk discovered this was not just due to the market but also due to a conspiracy that reached all the way up to the White House. This movie is an interesting report on several levels. It is about a dream to make mass-produced dream houses.

Plan the impossible - H. Th. Wijdeveld
Introduction by freelance journalist Chris Reinewald
Saturday June 19, 19.30h
Thirty years ago director and 'critical admirer' Hank Onrust made a beautiful documentary about the architect H. Th. Wijdeveld (1885-1987). As a utopian architect Wijdeveld is the Dutch Frank Lloyd Wright or Le Corbusier. He designed a shank of 20 km to the middle of the earth, made a plan for the reforestation of Holland and came up with a new city district with theatre in 'het Vondelpark', Amsterdam. These are only a few examples of the imagination of Hendrik Wijdeveld, the biggest visionary of the Dutch architectural history. To Wijdeveld the world was a theatre, in which he could stage his dreams. Opposed to the neutral, scientific town-planning of the modernistic times he created a visual spectacle.

Leben in der stadt von morgen
Introduction by designer Jan Konings
Sunday June 20, 17.00h
In 1957 the best architects of their time where invited to design in Berlin a city of the future. The district Hansaviertel became world-famous. What it is like to 'Live in the City of Tomorrow' is shown in this movie from 2007. Director Marian Engel shows images from the first meeting of designers in 1957 during the IBA (International Building Exhibition) as well as comments from current inhabitants.