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Architecture on Film: Post-producing Architecture - Torre David + Occupying Brazil
United Kingdom Architecture News - Jun 05, 2014 - 11:29 2869 views
Still from Torre David © Daniel Schwartz / U-TT & ETH
Thurs 10 July 2014, 7pm
A pair of short documentary films reporting on the critical situation of hundreds of low-income families in South America who facing homelessness, feel forced to illegally occupy abandoned high-rise buildings as an alternative to living on the streets. Two case studies in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Caracas, Venezuela, are told through the voices of those who squat these buildings. Occupying Brazil (2014), by Chilean director Daniel A. Rubio, will explore the context of Sao Paulo, where the demand for affordable housing has far outstripped supply, while hundreds of abandoned buildings stand empty. While Urban Think Tank's Torre David(2013), presented here as a UK premiere, will tell the story of the occupation of the eponymous building, a 45-story office tower in Caracas that was almost complete when it was abandoned following the death of its developer in 1993 and the subsequent collapse of the Venezuelan economy. Today, it is the improvised home of a community of more than 750 families, living in a self-built spaces within the building's shell, that some have called a vertical slum.
Occupying Brazil
Brazil, 2014. Dir Daniel A. Rubio. 25 mins. In Portuguese with English subtitles.
Torre David (UK premiere)
Venezuela / Switzerland, 2013. Dirs Markus Kneer and Daniel Schwartz. 22 mins. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Trailers: Occupying Brazil + Torre David