Articles by Dante A. Ciampaglia

Daniel Libeskind and Marina Abramovíc have a surprisingly personal discussion about their favorite movies with author and film scholar Antonio Monda. Photo © Mario Bucolo Starchitect Daniel Libeskind. Omnipresent performance artist Marina Abramovíc. Two big personalities. On stage, together, talking about movies. What could go right? Photo © Mario Bucolo From left: Daniel Libeskind, Marina Abramovíc, and Antonio Monda at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. A lot, it turns out.On Thursday, Abramovíc and Libeskind met at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York for “Films of My Life,” part of the ongoing Le Conversazioni program hosted

Read our preview of the new PBS documentary and then cast your vote for the building that has most influenced life in the United States. One of the 10 Buildings that Changed America: H.H. Richardson’s Trinity Church in Boston. It’s easy to take the American architectural cannon for granted. These are the structures that loom large, turning points in architectural history that also have a fixed place in pop culture. But how often does the public stop to consider why these well-known monuments were once revolutionary or reflect on how they shaped American culture? In the new PBS program 10

Filmmaker Su Friedrich discusses Gut Renovation, a personal and impassioned documentary about the transformation of a Brooklyn neighborhood. Still from Su Friedrich's documenatary Gut Renovation. This week, When SHoP Architects unveiled plans to overhaul the Domino sugar factory in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, it marked the most recent chapter in the area’s transformation from low-rise industrial zone to inexpensive artists’ enclave to in-demand residential district. In her impassioned new documentary, Gut Renovation, director and Su Friedrich chronicles that change over the course of several years. The film is at once a documentary about 21st century urbanism and an extremely intimate look

A new film charts the fight to redevelop America’s iconic amusement area. Photo © Amy Nicholson A protest on the boardwalk following the announcement of the city’s compromised plans for Coney Island. As it plays out on screen, no civic battle in recent New York history has been as contentious and passionate as the one between developer Joe Sitt and Mayor Michael Bloomberg for the future of Coney Island. The fight was the culmination of a complex tangle of zoning laws, neglect, tradition, class warfare, and lots and lots of money. Director Amy Nicholson's 77-minute documentary Zipper: Coney Island's Last Wild

With his latest Dark Knight film, Christopher Nolan gives us a Gotham for our times. Photo © Ron Phillips/Warner Bros. Pictures/DC Comics Christian Bale as Batman on a Gotham rooftop in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises. For nearly 75 years, Batman and Gotham City have been symbiotically connected, one essential to the formation of the other. And each new iteration of the character has brought with it a new city. Gotham began life as an exaggerated New York, but since the 1980s, Batman has become darker and more psychological, and with him, the city has become more conceptual and

Photo © Peter Ash Lee/courtesy Checkerboard Liz Diller, Ric Scofidio, and Charles Renfro are featured in a film being shown at the National Gallery. This week, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., will host the first retrospective of documentaries by the Checkerboard Film Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 1979 to produce, distribute, and archive films that document American artists and the artistic process. As the title suggests—“Celebrating New American Architecture and Design: A Salute to Checkerboard Film Foundation”—the retrospective will put the spotlight on the organization’s architecture documentaries, with 10 films screened over a two-day period. Related links Five

In its series 'Sometimes Cities: Urban America Beyond NYC,' New York City's Anthology Film Archives explores the intersection of architecture and people. Photo courtesy Anthology Film Archives/Julian Temple Requiem for Detroit? was developed by director Julien Temple to chronicle the “first post-American city.” Related Links: Imploding the Pruitt-Igoe Myth We’re All Doomed (Maybe) Urbanized Surveys Global Cities, in All Their Squalor and Glory When director Chad Friedrichs began work on a documentary about the notorious Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis, he thought he was making a film about architecture and environmental determinism. But as he did more research, the

Surviving Progress paints a bleak view of humanity’s future Photo courtesy First Run Features The Sao Paulo skyline as shown in the film. Related Links: Review: How Do I Love You, Mr. Foster? Review: New Eames Film Tepid Tribute Review: Imploding the Pruitt-Igoe Myth Questioning whether progress has actually occurred in the past 200 years is an audacious task in a film of less than 90 minutes. But directors Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks make a noble attempt in their documentary Surviving Progress, which opens in New York on Friday and nationally on April 20. The film, based on the