Prologue

Today is the 28th May, 2006. A Sunday. It is four minutes past eleven in the morning.

This is the junction between Palm and Holloway, at the heart of West Hollywood in Los Angeles.

In the background, the driver of the black limousine that drove slowly from left to right has got out of the car. He is about to retrace his steps.  A woman in a hat and pale-coloured jacket will cross the street from left to right. Somewhere hidden on this image is a house by Rudolph Schindler.

Looking at this junction, it becomes clear that there is no point in trying to separate a building from its environment. We are surrounded by a hodgepodge of traffic systems, modified space, asphalted surfaces, propaganda and urban wasteland covered in haphazard vegetation. This jumble is both comic and tragic at the same time. It subsumes every shred of ego that any architect might be said to possess.

It would be a joke to claim that all of this could be identified as design. It would also be a crime against the authorship of society as a whole, because this authorship, in all of its moods and variations, is bound to remain anonymous. In this sense, a film that still dares to say: “here is something that bears the name of a certain designer”, is, quite simply, criminal.

Heinz Emigholz is a German filmmaker, actor, artist, writer and producer. He is a Professor for Experimental film at Berlin University of the Arts and at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. His films include “Loos Ornamental” (2008), “Sulivans Banken” (2007), and “The Basis of Make-up III” (1996-2005).

for further information: www.pym.de / www.rudolph-schindler-film.com / www.filmgalerie451.de