Hacker Cinema
Urbanized
2011 · Film · documentary · 85 min
Part of Design Trilogy
Directed by Gary Hustwit
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.
13 positive4 neutralfrom 17 commenters
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18 comments on Hacker News
The trilogy of design-related documentaries by Gary Hustwit! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Trilogy
1. Objectified (on the design of objects)
2. Helvetica (on the design of typefaces)
3. Urbanized (on the design of cities and urban spaces)
If you're unfamiliar with Gary's design documentary series, do yourself a favor and buy all of them for a marathon watch. Rams' is one of the best because Dieter is so smart/charming.
Had the chance to see the premiere of Gary's doc Urbanized in Detroit a decade or so ago and ask him a question about the music he uses (from the band El Ten Eleven). Really nice guy who deeply cares about his craft.
Gary Hustwits design trilogy:
Helvetica - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica_(film)
“about typography and graphic design, centered on the eponymous typeface.”
Objectified - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectified
“examining the role of everyday non-living objects, and the people who design them, in our daily lives.”
Urbanized - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanized
“discusses how cities are designed, and it features interviews with urban planners and architects“
They are beautifully made films, and he interviews some of the most influential designers of the last century.
It funny how many times I’ve told people to watch Helvetica and they have just looked at me and asked how there could be a film about a “font”. It’s so much more, the films really cover design methodology and how it influences our every day lives.
While not really specifically about Bauhaus but covering the later movements it influenced up until the present, Gary Hustwit films in his "Design Trilogy" (Objectified, Helvetica, Urbanized) are a brilliant study into the influence of various design movements and designers over the last century. Very much recommend them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectified
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica_(film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanized
Typography, and more broadly design, have a big impact on the way you perceive things. The rabbit hole is endless, but I recommend three entry points:
- The Design Trilogy of films, made up of Helvetica, Objectified, and Urbanized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Trilogy
- The book Universal Principles of Design by William Lidwell
- The 101 Things I Learned In... series. There isn't one for typography, unfortunately, but the Fashion, Urban Design, Architecture, and Product Design books cover similar territories.
The director, Gary Hustwit, made his films (Helvetica, Objectified, Urbanized, Workplace, Rams, and others) available for free during the first weeks of the lockdown -- each one for a week. It was nice to see them again.
https://www.ohyouprettythings.com/free
I can strongly reccommend «Objectified», another one of Gary Hustwits documentaries. It features interviews with the legendary german industrial designer Dieter Ramms, where he praises Apple. It also has an interview with Jony Ive where he talks about the MacBook. «Urbanized» is also a good documentary from Hustwit, about urban design.
From the about page [1]:
Gary Hustwit is an independent filmmaker and photographer based in New York....
In 2007 he made his directorial debut with Helvetica, the world’s first feature-length documentary about graphic design and typography. The film marked the beginning of a design film trilogy, with Objectified, about industrial design and product design following in 2009, and Urbanized, about the design of cities, in 2011. The films have been broadcast on PBS, BBC, HBO and television outlets in 20 countries, and have been screened in over 300 cities worldwide. Workplace, a documentary project about the future of the office, was commissioned for the 2016 Venice Biennale of Architecture. His most recent feature film, Rams, about German design legend Dieter Rams with original music by Brian Eno, was released in Fall 2018.
[1] https://www.hustwit.com/about
Add Urbanized to that list too, it’s a really great look at how cities and their spaces are designed.
He also recently produced Rams which I’ve not yet had a chance to see but I hope is on par with his previous work.
And if you enjoy these films you’ll also likely appreciate the Abstract series which originally aired on Netflix.
Very nice movie, recommend the full set, helvetica, objectified, urbanized, by the same director
> It's also a lot harder to make more efficient. Housing isn't manufactured in large factories where you can optimize every step of the process—instead, it's done by lots and lots of local firms. This leads to vast differences in the level of efficiency.
> There's also the problem that there is still a social stigma against "generic" housing. Having the same phone as everyone else isn't looked down upon, but mass-produced homes carry a definite negative connotation. People look down on cookie-cutter condos or manufactured homes.
Agreed on both points.
The firm Elemental Architecture utilizes 'incremental building' to help improve the efficiency of housing construction while simultaneously attempting to address the homogeneity of low cost housing projects. The idea is certainly in its nascency, but it seems like a novel approach. In short, low cost housing is constructed such that occupants are able to expand and adapt the lodging to their needs later on (paying for the materials and labor themselves).
This approach was featured in Urbanized [0] (a documentary on urban design) and later in an episode of 99% Invisible [1], among other places, I assume.
[0] http://www.hustwit.com/category/urbanized/
[1] http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/half-a-house/
i can recommend Urbanized. a documentary about urban city planning. it covers lots of current ideas, and has interviews with many leading architects and urban planners.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1701976/ http://urbanizedfilm.com/
It's a great documentary, certainly one I'd recommend to everyone here. If you haven't seen them already, I highly recommend Helvetica and Urbanized.
Your comment reminds me of a segment of Urbanized, the documentary [1], in which a young woman, Candy Chang [2], creates a simple system for enabling citizens to voice their opinions on what should be done with vacant buildings in varying states of disrepair.
She created vinyl stickers that read "I Wish This Was", under which is a blank white space (resembling the My Name Is stickers common to networking events, etc.). She affixes a grid of the stickers to the building/scaffolding/whatever along with a Sharpie, and folks passing by write their suggestions on the stickers.
For me, what makes her idea so incredible is that the suggestions are made in context; they're not discussed at a town hall meeting miles away from the location, they're not submitted online in a fancy web app, and they're not handed down by local government among suggestions for hundreds of other plots.
It's great that OP is asking on HN, because I think (s)he'll get some great responses here, but the best place to ask might be in the space itself, in the company of the folks that make it more than Some Bookstore In Massachusetts Ripe For a Pivot.
Why not host an event to discuss the future of the store? Send invitations to professors and post flyers for students at local universities and see what happens. It can't hurt, right?
1. http://urbanizedfilm.com 2. http://candychang.com/i-wish-this-was/
I came here just to post that it was on Netflix streaming: http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Urbanized/70218731?locale=en-US
FYI - The film referenced, Urbanized, is available for streaming on Netflix. I watched it a few weeks back and thoroughly enjoyed it even though I'm not particularly versed or overly interested in the subject.
There's a great new movie about the design of cities called Urbanized and it has a section on New York, Jane Jacobs and her fight with Robert Moses:
http://urbanizedfilm.com
The guy who made it, Gary Hustwit, also made one called Helvetica, which is very very good, and is making a third (and final in the "series") called Urbanized, about urban design:
http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/blog/the-next-film-urbanized/
Also, Objectified is on Netflix streaming now, I believe.