Female architects portrayed in feature films are the epitome of women's strength, but also extraordinary humility. Ambitious, talented, yet often in the shadow of men. What do women face on the career path? Are the film characters of years ago different from today's female architects?
"Debutante" (1981).
Poland. The turn of the 1970s and 1980s. Ewa Orzechowska is a talented architecture graduate. She dreams of professional success, so she decides to cooperate with a well-known, prominent architect Jerzy, who is working on the project of the Maritime Museum. The closest collaborator and also lover of the architect is Maria. The woman moves to the architect's villa, where she lives together with his wife....
movie poster | KADR film studio
The 1982 film, directed by Barbara Sass, deals with issues still alive today - the power of women in architecture. It tells the story of an experienced architect and a young female architect - about professional hierarchy and their common daily struggles. The director draws attention to a kind of conflict between a mature man in a high position in the profession and a young, radiant girl. The academic, correct design of the master competes with the modern idea of the young architect. The message of the film, in addition to the romantic layer, is about the role and position of women in architecture throughout the ages.
The film is available free of charge: HERE.
The motif of a woman struggling for a career, the director started not only from observation, but also from her own life.
Assisting and working as a second director was a real school of professional life. Yet I was driven to frustration by the fact that when I submitted a project for a standalone film, I was rejected, and when my professional colleague came back with the same project - an adaptation - he got the film. - recounted the director, Barbara Sass, in her autobiographical book.
Professor Marta Lesniakowska art historian and architectural expert talks about the professional position of women in architecture in a conversation after the cinema screening of the film. The conversation is available: HERE, and she recalls female architects who changed the course of history and blazed trails with their bravado and architectural achievements.
"The Price of Desires" (2015)
This film reminds (and makes those outside aware) that the world of architecture is not only about commissions, projects and construction sites, but also about working with people, difficult professional relationships, sometimes conflicts and intrigues. The film tells the story of one of the most famous but forgotten architects of the past century, Eileen Gray, and her path to success and the realization of her own ideas, intertwined with the intricacies of her fate with other big-name architects.
interview with the director | YouTube Architect's Journal
A romance set against the backdrop of works of architecture? Underneath this film's romantic exterior, however, is something more.
Eileen Gray was born in a small town in southeastern Ireland. She moved out to Paris, where she studied art. Together with her lover, Jean Badovici, she undertook the design of a modernist villa in the south of France, known as E-1027. The building delighted the great Le Corbusier, who built his own summer house right next door. Interestingly, the Swiss, jealous of Gray's talent, did his best for many years to make the villa escape the public consciousness as his own design. However, the artist did not give up and decided to fight for the rights to his work. The intriguing story of Eileen Gray, for years a forgotten prominent designer and architect, a pioneer of modernism. Her life aroused much emotion and controversy. Her work escaped patterns, and she herself escaped any boundaries. The picture intrigues the viewer with an extremely refined space, it is impossible not to pay attention to the interiors in which the action takes place. The pictures were shot in authentic locations, including the interiors of the famous villa E-1027.
The woman creator. Who is she and how is her career path different from that of the men around her?
The world is changing, but unfortunately, not only movies, but also reality continues to make us aware of the unequal role of women in shaping the vision of architecture and urbanism. In many circles, the stereotype of a patriarchal world of builders, in which the only father of the work is still a male architect, is still present.
Marta Kowalska
