Dieste [Uruguay]

The final part of Heinz Emigholz's Streetscapes series is again a triptych. A prologue examines three buildings from the 1930s designed by Julio Vilamajó in Montevideo which could have inspired the work of Eladio Dieste, the subject of the main part of the film. The industrial and functional buildings presented span the period from 1955 to 1994; their organic brick construction is astonishing and inspiring. Emigholz's camera gives itself over to the elegantly curved lines, revelling in the buoyant, graceful shell architecture, which lets both air and light pass through, while also examining its surroundings to discover parallels in nature. Then the camera makes its way in turn through dismal, rubbish-strewn industrial areas to cathedral-like factory halls that house eerie mountains of unidentified substances.

The epilogue "Dieste [Spain]" presents later buildings designed by the architect, who died in 2000, smaller-scale copies of his larger church buildings. Closed off and compact, they come across like caricatures, out of place in the foreign setting. They form a sobering footnote that only illustrates the uniqueness of successful architecture all the more vividly.

Source: 67. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)