Filmoteka Muzeum

The film pivots around Jerzy Sołtan – outstanding architect affiliated with the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and Harvard University. It tells the story of, among others, his four years at Le Corbusier’s studio in Paris, the activity of the Art and Research Department (ZAB) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, as well as taking the dean’s position at the Architecture Department at Harvard University after Walter Gropius. Sołtan explains the significance of Modulor – the system of proportions which he drew under Le Corbusier’s supervision. He also talks about the search for references to the very beginnings of architecture, characteristic of Le Corbusier’s modernism. The film presents Sołtan’s architectural achievements in Poland and abroad, highlighting their much deteriorated condition and posing a question about the reasons of frequent withdrawals from the realisation of his designs under the communist regime in Poland. Cooperation with Sołtan is recounted by, among others, Jerzy Staniszkis, Zbigniew Ihnatowicz, Oskar Hansen. The footage from the meeting at the architect’s home in the US bears testimony to the way film may come in handy as a tool for a historian, who reconstructs facts on the basis of oral accounts (oral history).
 

(AK)

Year: 1995
Duration: 46'57''
Language: Polish
Source: BETA SP

© Marcin Giżycki

Acquisition date: Oct 18, 2011
Acquisition: deposit
Ownership form: deposit