SHELTER announces December content
SHELTER is the new home of inspiring design and architecture content. The global streaming service’s content encompasses everything from stories of design, to a deep dive into sustainability, history, and real-life aspirational stories. It offers audiences a range of fascinating ‘must-watch’ options from feature length films to television series; short series; Shelter Originals; and premium magazine video content from green magazine.
Persistence through adversity is the focus on SHELTER this December, beginning with the incredible life of Robert P. Madison.
The life of architect, decorated World War II veteran, pioneering entrepreneur and civic leader Robert P. Madison is chronicled in Deeds Not Words. After returning from Europe in WWII, Madison sought only one thing; to resume his budding career as an architect.
Initially denied application to Case Western University, he broke through the racial barrier and became the first black person to gain a degree in architecture in Ohio, and later the first to start his own architecture firm in the state.
Madison would go on to become an instrumental figure in developing Cleveland’s new waterfront and a number of iconic buildings throughout the city and country.
From Ohio we head to the Far-North, into the freezing but beautiful landscape of the Arctic, with the short film Northbound, fresh from its premiere earlier this year in Official Selection at the Long Story Shorts Film Festival.
Showcasing the tough yet inspiring lives of the people who live above the Arctic Circle, Northbound tells of why these people choose to live in some of the most remote, isolated and challenging places on Earth.
In Berlin the city’s struggle to re-imagine and re-design a major central area is in focus of Last Exit Alexanderplatz.
Situated in the heart of the Capital, Alexanderplatz was central to the protests to bring down the Berlin Wall in 1989, but the outdated socialist urban planning and architecture of the 1970s began to grate with the city’s new ideas of an inner-city square in post-reunification Germany.
A competition was held in 1993 to transform the area, with the goal of creating a high-end, Manhattan-like business district filled with skyscrapers. Yet in redesigning the storied Platz, the architects faced an ideological and financial struggle with the history and memory of the area, while also battling the dogmatism and insensitivity that characterised much of planning in post-reunification Berlin.
From 90s Germany we next look back through the 20th century at the defining work of John Lautner, and trace his lifelong quest to create “architecture that has no beginning and no end,” in Infinite Space: The Architecture of John Lautner.
Renowned architectural filmmaker Murray Grigor explores Lautner’s dramatic spaces with commentary from Lautner himself; drawn from archival sources.
Chronicling a life marked by innovation and inspiration, endless battles with building codes, an accidental leap into the epicentre of pop culture, bitterness at lost opportunities, and finally – monumental achievement, Infinite Space is an incredible insight into the mind behind some of the most iconic modernist American architecture.
NEW TO SHELTER IN DECEMBER:
- 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 and 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 characterised 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.
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