Una breve historia de los rascacielos - Parte dos: Concreto
2013 · 7m · Canada
Directed by Katerina Cizek
Genres: documentary, essay film, historical
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
Twentieth-century concrete towers in New York and elsewhere are examined as tools for social equality. Public housing ambitions meet architectural reality.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Cizek's essay-doc framing of brutalist housing as failed utopia *should* be predictable miserabilism, but she's actually interested in the gap between architectural intention and lived reality—that contradiction is the real subject, not the towers themselves.
A formally rigorous interrogation of the highrise within documentary tradition; Cizek's essayistic voice and deliberate pacing situate this film in conversation with Marker and the structural documentary lineage, using seven minutes to interrogate what concrete promised and what it became.
The decision to hold on architectural detail while layering historical ambition against present decay—that temporal friction created entirely through editing and voiceover rhythm—is what transforms archive footage and buildings into genuine melancholy.