Koolhaas Houselife (2008, 58′) + Butohouse (2019, 33′)

Presented by Susana Ventura
Susana Ventura (Coimbra, 1978) is an architect, philosopher, critic, and curator specialising in contemporary art and architecture. She is currently an Assistant Researcher at the Centre for Studies in Architecture and Urbanism at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto (CEAU-FAUP).

Koolhaas Houselife portrays one of the masterpieces of contemporary architecture: the house in Bordeaux, designed by Rem Koolhaas / OMA in 1998. The film lets the viewer enter into the daily intimacy of the house through the stories and daily chores of Guadalupe Acedo, the housekeeper, and the other people who look after the building. As we follow and interact with Guadalupe, an unusual and unpredictable look at the spaces and structure of the building opens up.

ButoHouse
Somewhere in the gigantic human anthill of Tokyo, a man resists to the infernal machinery of the great metropolis. Alone, for 15 years, he built this resistance in the form of a house. A shell? A cathedral? A folly? The work of Keisuke Oka escapes any simple definition. We should rather speak of a world, a small universe built and thought in a rare freedom. Trained in butoh dance, an avant-garde choreographic movement born in Japan in the 1960s, Oka makes architecture a performance. Conceived day after day in the mode of improvisation, the space that slowly emerges is a form of moving meditation. A total work of art, the Arimaston building is the imprint in the concrete of a man’s life. This film tells this adventure at a very special moment in its history. Following new urban regulations, the Arimaston building was recently threatened with destruction by the city of Tokyo for being too close to the street and neighbouring buildings. The only solution would be to move it 10 meters back. Pending the outcome of the current trial, the site had to be stopped. Like the building, this film is an improvisation. Beka & Lemoine met Keisuke Oka by chance the day he chose to build, before the total stop of the project, the last three steps of the staircase that will lead to the top floor. ButoHouse is a film about concrete, illumination, perseverance and hope.