Sense of Architecture

Sense of Architecture contains 42 projects realised largely by a Graz-based school of younger architects in their home region of Styria but also in other Austrian states and worldwide; these include not only new buildings but also restoration or redesign projects. Emigholz put these works into an order that reflects the passage through modern civilised life. The film opens with a church belfry, moves through a kindergarten, pharmacy, villa, housing project, prison, monastery, corporate HQ, museum etc. on to a crematorium and finally a columbarium. Whenever possible, Emigholz delineates a building's history, presents the remains of its older form and how it was re-envisioned by the architects: often a building is first presented as new and then, image by image, its origins are unveiled. As a whole, Sense of Architecture is an epic of change, of progress driven by human development.
Part 11 of Emigholz's architectural studies that form the film collection Photography and Beyond.