Documentary filmmakers discuss
their work with architecture profs

A video interview with internationally renowned film documentarians Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine, taped prior to a screening of their internationally acclaimed film, "Koolhaas HouseLife," part of the Department of Architecture’s Spring 2011 Lecture Series, is now available on the College of Architecture’s vimeo website.

Bêka and Lemoine, co-founders of BêkaFilms, were interviewed Feb. 28 by Peter Lang, associate professor of architecture, and Jasmine Benyamin, assistant professor of architecture, in the Viz Lab’s studio A at Langford Architecture Center.

"Koolhaas HouseLife," a documentary in the artists’ Living Architectures series, is about a home designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas.

Living Architectures, the filmmakers said, is a series of films that seeks to develop a way of looking at architecture that turns away from the current trend of idealizing the representation of our architectural heritage.

Through their films, Bêka and Lemoine demonstrate the vitality, fragility and vulnerable beauty of architecture as recounted and witnessed by people who actually live in, use or maintain the spaces they have selected.

Their films focus less on explaining the building, its structure and its technical details than on letting the viewer enter into the invisible bubble of the daily intimacy of contemporary architectural icons.

- Posted: Apr. 26, 2011 -

Contact:   Phillip Rollfing, prollfing@archone.tamu.edu or 979.458.0442.