aut: mediatheque “architecture.city.design"
a collection curated by helmut weihsmann with films on architecture, the city and design
“Cinema will become a faithful interpreter of architecture’s most audacious visions,” prophesized Luis Buñuel in view of the film Metropolis by Fritz Lang.
For over ten years aut. architektur und tirol, together with Helmut Weihsmann as the curator, has been constantly collecting key examples from all film genres concerning architecture, the city and design.
screening architecture, an exhibition held in 2003, formed the basis for the aut: mediatheque. In the meantime it also serves individual visitors, the university and schools as a research facility for the engagement with architecture, the city and design, and complements Innsbruck’s existing library landscape as a visual archive.
In a foray through film history, architecture is explored in the form of some of the most remarkable spatial stagings. Starting from the classics and masterpieces of the realistic “city symphonies” and building documentation in the style of New Objectivity all the way to utopian architectural designs of science fiction films and visionary urban images from all epochs. Film essays and documentaries which are devoted to the relationship of architecture and urban planning and portray individual architects and structures, have especially been added. The selection includes cinematic examples of famous directors from Wim Wenders, to Jean-Luc Godard, to Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, as well as documentaries about Le Corbusier all the way to Zaha Hadid, and are complemented by the special focus on “product design.”
The database of all films which can be viewed on site during opening hours in the sense of a research mediatheque are available at aut. architektur und tirol.
The aut: mediatheque can be subdivided into five subject areas:
Subject area I:
Passages of Modernity [Building in the 20th Century]
Subject area II:
Urbanity & Aesthetics: Urban Studies [Metropolises & World Cities]
Subject area III:
Urban Fiction [Urban Visions & Future Scenarios]
Subject area IV:
Cyberspace [Interzones, Horror, Fantasy and Parallel Worlds]
Subject area V:
Design & Everyday Culture [Design, Typography, Light ...]