Lost Pyramids of the Aztecs

Winy Maas, co-founder of MVRDV architects, always has 100 projects going at once. Documentary filmmaker Jan Louter followed him for two years to make "Under Tomorrow's Sky", a candid and open-hearted look at the highs and lows of the architecture profession.

The Colosseum: the jewel of Ancient Rome. It wowed vast crowds with extraordinary battles. It pushed the boundaries of technology. It exhibited Rome’s vast wealth and power. Roman leaders spread the Colosseum’s design throughout the Empire, and it helped them conquer the ancient world. But just as the structure embodied Rome’s power, so too did it contribute to the Empire’s downfall.

Go beyond the lost human history! A profile and examination of the recent findings of a highly advanced human settlement submerged at the end of the Ice Age when the sea level rose. The story of Atlantis has its roots in actual historical events!

One billion people on our planet—one in six—live in shantytowns, slums or squats. Slums: Cities of Tomorrow challenges conventional thinking to propose that slums are in fact the solution, not the problem, to urban overcrowding caused by the massive migration of people to cities. (Lynne Fernie, HotDocs)

Travel through the streets of Rochester and you’ll find some extraordinary architecture. From California bungalows to English Tudors, French colonials to Victorians, the Flour City is home to so many beautiful dwellings. WXXI takes you on a private tour inside some of these exquisite house in Great Homes of Rochester.

A short concerning the excavations in Herculaneum.

Documentary about 4 large architectural landmarks that projected Portugal abroad.

In 1872, in the cave of Cavillon in Monaco, archaeologist Émile Rivière (1835-1922) unearthed an apparently very old human skeleton, at least 24,000 years old, a discovery that changed the modern image of prehistoric men and women.

Minimalist documentary by Rax Rinnekangas about the wooden cottage "La Cabanon" designed and built in 1952 by Swiss architect and furniture designer Le Corbusier - a refuge intended for a single person with a living space of only 3.66 x 3.66 meters. The construction followed Corbusier's maxim that architecture must adapt to the human body and not vice versa. 

Chaco Canyon, located in northwest New Mexico, is perhaps the only site in the world constructed in an elaborate pattern that mirrors the yearly cycle of the sun and the 19-year cycle of the moon. How did an ancient civilization, with no known written language, arrange its buildings into a virtual celestial calendar, spanning an area roughly the size of Ireland?

In this hour-long documentary, Oxford academic Janina Ramirez tours the country in search of Anglo-Saxon art treasures. Her basic thesis - and it is a plausible one - is that we should not look upon their era as a "dark age" as compared, for example, to Roman times, but rather celebrate it as an age in which creativity flowered, especially in terms of artistic design as well as symbolism. She shows plenty of good examples, ranging from the Franks Casket to the Staffordshire Hoard, and the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Druids have existed far longer than hitherto assumed, since the 4th century BC. Their traces are found all over middle Europe: from the northern Balkans to Ireland. Their cultural achievements were equal in almost every way to those of the Romans and Greeks: They could read and write and spoke Greek and Latin - for centuries, they were the powerful elite of their culture. Only one single Druid is known by name to history: Diviciacos - an aristocrat of the Aedui and personal friend of Julius Caesar. Diviciacos was a politician, a judge and a diplomat, but he lived at a time when the Celtic lands of Gaul were conquered by the Romans. Greek and Roman contemporaries distrusted the actions of this forbear of the famous comic book druid Getafix: They imagined him in bloody rituals in somber woods.

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2005-2008. Video. In 2005 San Francisco real estate magnate Angelo Sangiacomo commissioned Strickland to make a movie that would chronicle final stages in the construction of his new house in Pebble Beach, CA. Amidst the spectacle of the building site, the videographer sought to portray a design project of operatic proportions that involved a sometimes dissonant cast of characters and took more than 6 years to unfold. The owners hoped that this video record might lend future visibility to a structure’s bones and soul that otherwise vanish from sight by the time building is completed.

A documentary made by History Time on YouTube. Written, researched and produced by Pete Kelly.

A man with a perspective like no other on the planet. The leading structural engineer of the World Trade Center oversees its construction, haunted by its fall ever since. A guru in high-rise design. Driven by his values as a pacifist and activist and the woman engineer who emboldened, expanded and ultimately saved the man she loved. About fulfillment, fragility, and a fighting spirit.

Art historian and filmmaker Sundaram Tagore travels in the footsteps of Louis Kahn to discover how the famed American architect built a daringly modern and monumental parliamentary complex in war-torn Bangladesh.

A portrait of the Canadian architect Luc Durand (1929 – 2018), who, after studying with Eugène Beaudoin in Switzerland, began his career in India. This period would be decisive for his career and would influence many of the projects he designed in Quebec, including the Quebec Pavilion at Expo 67, Place Dupuis, and the Olympic Village for the 1976 Olympic Games. Durand then decided to return to his roots in 2012, traveling from Montreal to Geneva, from New Delhi to Chandigarh. A portrait of an eminent figure in Quebec architecture.

A rare, in-depth artistic journey into the work of internationally acclaimed Swiss architect Mario Botta. The film explores Botta's ever growing curiosity and reflections on the contractions of society through his sacred spaces, a subject very dear to him. Why does globalized society feel the urge to build such spaces? The directors traveled to China, South Korea, Israel, Italy, and Switzerland to discover a passionate and tireless artist, his buildings, and part of his creative process. Botta is one of the few architects who has built places of prayer for three main monotheistic religions. After building many churches, chapels, and synagogue, he is now working on a mosque in China. Through his thoughts and his interaction with artists, colleagues, clients, and family members, the viewers have a glimpse of the man behind the Architect.

Documentary about a utopian housing project in Rio de Janeiro by architect Affonso Eduardo Reidy.