DADo Online – DADo Film Society

Welcome to DADo Online.

What is DADo Online?

In 2020, COVID-19 plunged Melbourne into a months-long lockdown. DADo Online began with the hopes to provide viewers with films that could be watched from home, for free. It wasn’t the same as watching films at the beautiful Walsh Street, but we hoped it would be a good way to share films with the community until we could get back to doing what we do best: screening great films and listening to great speakers in Robin Boyd’s beautiful family home. Over the course of the lockdown months, DADo Online shared and accumulated dozens of full length and short films which can be found below. We hope it helped you through a tumultuous 2020!

How It Works

Every fortnight we aim to share with you 3 films on architecture, urbanism, and design, that you can watch from the comfort of your own home. With each release we will update our social media and add to the list below, with direct links provided to the source of the videos.

Donations

Our volunteer work at DADo has been supporting the Robin Boyd Foundation with tickets sold to our events since 2013. While Walsh Street is closed due to COVID-19 we won’t be able to hold the same events nor raise funds through our ticketing, and so we would encourage you to visit the donations page at the Robin Boyd Foundation website if you enjoy this content. We’d love to continue showing our support for the Foundation and hope you will too with a tax-deductible donation here.

Featured Full Length Films:

Metropolis

Year: 1927
Run Time: 2h33
Directed By: Fritz Lang

“In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city’s mastermind falls in love with a working class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.”

Metropolis, a German silent film released in 1927, features director Fritz Lang’s vision of a grim futuristic society and contains some of the most impressive images in film history.

Often sited as the first great science fiction films, Metropolis continues to inspire and delight almost a hundred years later. Its influence can be seen in many subsequent science fiction films, including Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) and Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985). Lang’s eye for magnificent set pieces and special effects resulted in memorable images, notably the immense skyscrapers that dominate the skyline of Metropolis and the scenes in which the robot takes on Maria’s features.

Lang claimed the inspiration for his film was “my first sight of the skyscrapers in New York. I looked into the streets – the glaring lights and the tall buildings – and there I conceived Metropolis.”

Mon Oncle

Year: 1958
Run Time: 1h56
Directed by: Jacques Tati

“Monsieur Hulot visits the technology-driven world of his sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, but he can’t quite fit into the surroundings.”

The 1958 comedic gem Mon Oncle was written and directed by and starred Jacques Tati and was the second film in which he played the much-loved Monsieur Hulot – a polite, clumsy and naive character whose creation was influenced by Buster Keaton and in turn influenced Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean.

Mon Oncle pokes fun at the absurdities of modern living and society’s growing obsession with technology. The design of the house, much praised and shown off by Madame Arpel, exposes the discomfort of certain modern designs and the pretentiousness of its owners; with its fish-shaped fountain that only gets turned on for important visitors, its garden divided into over-manicured compartments and gadgets so loud they make conversation impossible. The link between the two worlds is Hulot’s nephew Gérard. Bored by his sterile surroundings and impersonal parents, he has much more fun with his Uncle.

HOW TO WATCH: Kanopy is a service that partners with your local library to provide you free films. Sign up to Kanopy using your existing library card and gain access to a huge number of both educational and entertaining content!

Playtime

Year: 1967
Run Time: 2h35
Directed By: Jacques Tati

“Monsieur Hulot curiously wanders around a high-tech Paris, paralleling a trip with a group of American tourists. Meanwhile, a nightclub/restaurant prepares its opening night, but it’s still under construction.”

After the phenomenal global success of Mon Oncle (1958), Jacques Tati was given carte blanche to create his next film. Working meticulously and experimentally over the next nine years, Tati created one of the great works of “architectural” cinema, overseeing the construction of a massive working mini-city on the outskirts of Paris and producing a profound spatial and perceptual comedy of modern humanity, and the places and spaces it constructs for itself. Paradoxically, Playtime acts as both a parody of modernism and one of its great cinematic emblems.

Very much indebted to and gently critical of the legacy of the international style and globalisation, this prescient, brilliantly calibrated and staged comedy on modernity celebrates both the absurdity of the contemporary built environment and the opportunities for “play” and “time” it allows its human occupants. Initially designed to be only screened on 70mm and in optimal circumstances, this grand “folly” was financially ruinous to Tati but has emerged as one of the great visionary and truly modern works of the cinema.

Belonging - Glenn Murcutt

Year: 2013
Run Time: 21m
Directed by: Aureliano Ramella

A beautifully filmed documentary on the Simpson-Lee house and the Boyd Center by Australian architect Glenn Murcutt. Aureliano pairs an insightful interview with Murcutt with the sights and sounds of the building’s Australian context.

The sounds of frogs, cicadas and whipbirds and imagery of bushfire smoke and morning mist surrounding the buildings elevates the words of Murcutt as he describes the important aspects of his work and the techniques he employs to keep his buildings ‘of place’ and part of the landscape.

Autopsy On A Dream

Year: 1968 (Restored 2013)
Run Time: 1h24m (+Prologue 27m)
Directed By: John Weiley

“It stands, a frosty, glad symbol of whatever you like. Destroyed by cussedness, betrayed by cowardice, brought to this quietus by the politics that giveth and the politics that taketh away…”

In 1968, John Weiley shot ‘Autopsy on a Dream’ a film on the Sydney Opera House which detailed the construction process of the Opera House, and the politics of Jorn Utzons dismissal. The documentary was controversial, it was screened once, and then John Weiley was told it had been destroyed, literally chopped to pieces. Forty five years later a copy of the film was discovered in the BBC vaults by an ABC producer looking for archive footage of the Opera House. So began the painstaking process of restoring this record of a unique moment in Australian culture to its former glory.

An enchanting film, recently released for free online by the Sydney Opera House group complete with prologue. A highly recommended watch.

Harry Seidler: Modernist

Year: 2016
Run Time: 58m
Directed By: Daryl Dellora

The first documentary retrospective of Harry Seidler’s architectural legacy, Harry Seidler: Modernist reveals an intimate portrait of his extraordinary life and internationally recognised work. During a career that spanned almost sixty years he worked in New York, Paris, China, and Mexico, reshaped Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Vienna and prompted architects and artists from all over the world to look to his work as an inspiration.

Seidler typified the practice of mid-century modernism in Australia more than any other. From the moment he arrived in Sydney his private homes were in demand and his uniquely stylised and innovatively engineered tower blocks came to dominate the skyline. International buildings include the Australian Embassy in Paris and the Wohnpark Neue Donau in Vienna. The year of release marked 10 years since the death of Harry Seidler and this timely documentary delivers an exhilarating retrospective of Seidler’s architectural vision.

Eames: The Architect and the Painter

Year: 2011
Run Time: 1h26
Directed By: Jason Cohn, Bill Jersey

“The husband-and-wife team of Charles and Ray Eames were America’s most influential and important industrial designers. Admired for their creations and fascinating as individuals, they have risen to iconic status in American culture.

‘The Architect and the Painter’ draws from a treasure trove of archival material, as well as new interviews with friends, colleague, and experts to capture the personal story of Charles and Ray while placing them firmly in the context of their fascinating times.”

HOW TO WATCH: Kanopy is a service that partners with your local library to provide you free films. Sign up to Kanopy using your existing library card and gain access to a huge number of both educational and entertaining content!

Richard Leplastrier: Framing the View

Year: 2020
Run Time: 1h13
Directed By: Anna Cater

“Filmed over 15 years, this documentary [is] a powerful portrait of a seminal figure in Australian architecture.”

The 81-year-old Melbourne-born architect “… is the architect’s architect, refusing to become a ‘starchitect’. And while he designs beautifully crafted houses for his clients, his own lifestyle is closer to camping,” says the documentary’s creator. “Shunning the limelight, he tucks himself away in his one-room home in a remote estuary north of Sydney, only reached by boat.”

‘Framing the View’ follows Leplastrier from his house in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney to the construction of other homes in the city.

Artbound: Masters of Modern Design

Year: 2019
Run Time: 56m
Directed By: Akira Boch

“From the iconic typeface of “The Godfather” book cover to Herman Miller’s Noguchi table, the influence of Japanese American artists and designers in postwar American art and design is unparalleled. While this second generation of Japanese American artists have been celebrated in various publications and exhibitions with their iconic work, less-discussed are the effects of the WWII incarceration.”

Urbanized

Year: 2011
Run Time: 1h25
Directed By: Gary Hustwit
Presented By: Oh You Pretty Things

A documentary about the design of cities, which looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers.

Objectified

Year: 2009
Run Time: 1h15
Directed By: Gary Hustwit
Presented By: Oh You Pretty Things

A feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them.

Helvetica

Year: 2007
Run Time: 1h20
Directed By: Gary Hustwit
Presented By: Oh You Pretty Things

A feature-length documentary about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives.

Jorn Utzon: The Man and the Architect

Year: 2018
Run Time: 1h30

This is the deeply personal and moving story about the world-renowned architect and his unique gift. Behind him stood the love of his life through 70 years, Lis. His children, close colleagues, and friends share anecdotes and experiences. It is the untold story about the man behind the famous uncompromising architect.

60 Minutes Interview: I.M. Pei

Year: 1987
Run Time: 11m

“The unnecessary amount of times she mentions his Chinese background is astounding” – a comment on this video.

We completely agree, but this interview from 1987 is an intriguing window in time to when I.M. Pei began construction of the Louvre Pyramid.

Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud

Year: 1996
Run Time: 1h30

A film that looks at the unconventional life of Buckminster Fuller, his innovations, and his radical view of the contemporary world. Best known as the inventor of the Geodesic Dome, Fuller had many other inventions, such as an air-streamed three-wheeled car, and had innovative ideas of how to ‘benefit mankind.’

Featured Shorts and Interviews:

Colorized: The Flying Train, Germany, 1902

Year: 1902 (Colourised 2020)
Run Time: 4m
Original film supplied by: MoMA
Processing: Denis Shiryaev

Surreal footage of the flying train system of the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, the world’s oldest electric elevated rail system with hanging cars. Expertly colourised by Denis Shiryaev, who uses machine learning and neural networks to bring new life to footage taken in another age, this film shows impressive clarity of a futuristic transport system that 118 year later is still in use to this day.

Around 80,000 people per weekday use this system today in the city of Wuppertal. The supporting frame has been largely modernised, and many stations have been reconstructed to current technical and safety standards.

Colorized: 1929-1930 Construction Workers on the Chrysler Building

Year: 1929-130 (Colourised 2020)
Run Time: 13m
Original film supplied by: Moving Image Research Collections
Processed using: DeOldify

New York’s Chrysler Building was built in a remarkably short time–foundation work began in November 1928, and the building officially opened in May 1930. Even more remarkably, the steelwork went up in just six months in the summer of 1929 at an average rate of four floors a week.

Fox Movietone’s sound cameras visited the construction site several times in 1929 and 1930, staging a number of shots to maximize viewers’ sense of the spectacular heights. Movietone almost never put somebody in front of a camera without giving them something to say, so a number of scenes include some staged dialogue. AI-based colourisation and upscaling provide new depth to this window into the past.

Colorized: A Trip Through Paris, France in the Late 1890s

Year: 1896-1900 (Colourised 2020)
Run Time: 6m
Original film by: Lumière Brothers
Colourisation: Denis Shiryaev
Sound and speed correction: Guy Jones

Featuring horseback firemen, roads filled with horse-drawn carriages, moving walkways (with both slow and fast lanes), and much more, this footage taken between 1896 and 1900 was taken by the Lumière Brothers, capturing a striking range of contemporary life in 19th-century Paris.

Speed correction and ambient sound by Guy Jones and colourised by Denis Shiryaev using publically available machine learning and neural network tools, the resulting reproduction shows how improving technology is changing the way we’re able to look into the past, bringing new means of experiencing bygone eras.

The Barbican: A City Within a City

Year: 2016
Run Time: 10m
Directed by: Douglas Hurcombe

A film taking an intimate ‘inside’ view on life in one of the most iconic building schemes of the 20th Century. Told from the standpoint of two residents, one an architect who formed part of the original design team and the other an artisan model-maker with a life-long obsession with this masterpiece of brutalism. This film was commissioned with Conran + Partners to run in the visitor centre for their new ‘4th tower’ development at The Barbican and was shot with exclusive access to the estate and at Terence Conran’s apartment at the Conran building in Shad Thames.

Sirius

Year: 2017
Run Time: 2m
Directed By: Toby Morris

A film about Sirius apartments at The Rocks in Sydney, and it’s architect Tao Gofers.

“Sirius is an important part of Australia’s cultural history. It has been social and affordable housing for almost 40 years. Yet the current NSW Government is determined to evict the remaining elderly residents and demolish the building to make way for luxury apartments.”

On 28 June 2019, the NSW government announced that Sirius would be refurbished rather than demolished.

Neave Brown: Building a Legacy

Year: 2016
Run Time: 7m
Produced By: Proudfoot

“We were working not to do ‘social housing’, but to do ‘housing’. Not to do ‘a site’ but to work on the idea of a piece of city – to revitalise and work with the society that was there.”

A short film about Neave Brown, the pioneering architect of social housing and the 2018 Royal Gold Medal recipient.

Hear from the people who live in the houses he designed, have been inspired by his work and knew him as a peer and friend.

Powers of Ten

Year: 1977
Run Time: 9m
Directed By: Charles and Ray Eames

Powers of Ten is one of the Eameses’ best-known films. Since it was produced in 1977, it has been seen by millions of people both nationally and internationally. In this film, Charles and Ray employed the system of exponential powers to visualize the importance of scale.

In 1998, Powers of Ten was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Solar Do-Nothing Machine

Year: 1957, 1995
Run Time: 2m
Filmed By: Charles and Ray Eames

In 1957, Charles and Ray designed the Solar Do-Nothing Machine for Alcoa, the Aluminum Company of America.

The machine was one of the first uses of solar power to produce electricity. When published in Life Magazine in March 24, 1958, the machine was described as a “forerunner of future solar-power machine” and was subsequently touted by the Aluminum Company of America as “an enchanting harbinger of more useful sun machines for the future.”

In the 1990s, Eames Demetrios discovered unedited footage of the wonderful machine. He cut it together to produce a new film that shares a bit of its flavor for future generations to enjoy.

Toccota for Toy Trains

Year: 1957
Run Time: 14m
Directed By: Charles and Ray Eames

This film delves into the world of toy trains, which Charles loved long after boyhood.

Charles wrote and narrated the opening to the film. He explains that, “In a good old toy there is apt to be nothing self-conscious about the use of materials. What is wood is wood; what is tin is tin; and what is cast is beautifully cast . . . It is possible that somewhere in all this is a clue to what sets the creative climate of any time, including our own.”

The concepts in the narration are more complex than they might seem at first glance. Charles is referencing the importance of “the honest use of materials,” an idea that he and Ray considered in ever one of their works.

Norman Foster Interview:
Striving for Simplicity

Year: 2015
Run Time: 40m
Interviewed By: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Presented By: Louisiana Channel

“Quality is an attitude of mind.”

Norman Foster here reflects on a long and prosperous career – and life – with prominent buildings and more than 1,000 employees all over the world.

Louisiana Channel is a non-profit website based at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark. The Louisiana team produces videos about art and culture, including dozens of insightful interviews with prominent architects and artists from around the world, including Renzo Piano, Alejandro Aravena, Balkrishna Doshi, and many more.

Diébédo Francis Kéré Interview: Architecture is a Wake-Up Call

Year: 2014
Run Time: 5m
Interviewed By: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Presented By: Louisiana Channel

“Architecture is much more than art. And it is by far more than just building buildings”.

Meet award-winning architect Diébédo Francis Kéré from Burkina Faso in this interview about his architectural philosophy.

Jan Gehl Interview:
How to Build a Good City

Year: 2017
Run Time: 38m
Interviewed By: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Presented By: Louisiana Channel

“Architecture is the interplay between form and life. And only if life and form interact in a successful way, this will be good architecture.”

A wonderful interview with Danish architect Jan Gehl, who for more than fifty years has focused on improving the quality of urban life by helping people “re-conquer the city.”

In Residence: Sue Webster

Year: 2019
Run Time: 5m21
Directed By: Emile Rafael
Presented By: NOWNESS

“Step into the DIY punk artist’s ‘mole man house’—the former home of a notorious east London tunneller.”

“When an entire residential road lost power and an eight-foot sinkhole opened up in the street, the north London council of Hackney could no longer turn a blind eye to the rumours surrounding the ‘mole man house’—a property owned by notorious amateur tunneller William Lyttle.”

An amazing house renovated by David Adjaye, full of character with a fascinating story to accompany it. We’re featuring NOWNESS this week as a treasure trove of beautifully shot films about art, culture and design.

In Residence: Ricardo Bofill

Year: 2014
Run Time: 5m48
Directed By: Albert Moya
Presented By: NOWNESS

“How the Spanish architect built an empire out of a disused factory.”

“There are houses, and then there’s Ricardo Bofill’s house: a brutalist former cement factory of epic proportions on the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain. A grandiose monument to industrial architecture in the Catalonian town of Sant Just Desvern, La Fabrica is a poetic and personal space that redefines the notion of the conventional home.”

Atmospheric, bold, and captured beautifully in this film. We’re featuring NOWNESS this week as a treasure trove of beautifully shot films about art, culture and design.

Private View: El Racó

Year: 2007
Run Time: 4m53
Directed By: Marc Puig
Presented By: NOWNESS

“Inside the studio of Catalan ceramicist and Miró collaborator Joan Gardy-Artigas.”

“Throughout his illustrious career, Catalan sculptor Joan Gardy-Artigas has worked alongside some of the leading artists of the twentieth century, from Picasso and Miró to Giacometti and Chagall.”

A fascinating window into the life of an influential ceramicist. We’re featuring NOWNESS this week as a treasure trove of beautifully shot films about art, culture and design.