The New Modernists: 9 American Architects

1993 / 58 min. / color
Directed by Michael Blackwood
Narration by Kenneth Frampton
Featuring: Steven Holl, Mark Mack, Thom Mayne and Michael Rotondi, Stanley Saitowitz, Henry Smith-Miller and Laurie Hawkinson, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien.

This installment of The New Modernists looks at nine American-based innovators and their work for housing projects, commercial architecture, private houses and renovations from California to Italy to Japan and beyond. New York architect Billie Tsien, who participates in the film along with her husband and creative partner Tod Williams, states “Making architecture is about the process of making something and the thing, when you are finished, is never perfect, it is always slightly changing, it gets the scratches of the people who move in, fingerprints, it is like life itself, it is not static.” (Billie Tsien) The featured architectects discuss their methods and efforts towards building on the principles of Modernism while evolving a new language- one drawn from politics, film, literature, theory and the state of the world.