Kumu Documentary: Interior Architect Aulo Padar. Drawn Universes / Olivetti Perspective 10/02/2021 | 17:00

Interior Architect Aulo Padar. Drawn Universes
Dir: Maris Kerge
Estonia 2020, 30 min
In Estonian

Questioning “how rooted architecture practice is and how much the built and cultural environment feeds and shapes our imagination”, Beka & Lemoine’s latest film follows one of the most celebrated Japanese architects of our times, Ryue Nishizawa, in his vintage Alfa Romeo (Giulia) as he wanders the streets of Tokyo.

Aulo Padar was one of the most prolific Estonian interior architects during the Soviet era. The environments that he created have mostly not survived, as is often the case with interior design, but the memories of how the designs came about live on in their author’s memories. The film will take us on a walk through the worlds that Padar designed at his drawing desk: the kolkhoz centre in Kobela, the administrative building of the Rapla municipality construction office and the limited-access shop Turist, which sold the Soviet people foreign goods for foreign currency. We can see the thought processes of the architect, which were necessarily limited by pragmatism, not to mention the lack of information and construction materials. The dialogue between the client and the architect was very different in those days, so the Soviet-era creative processes seem like something out of a legend for us today.

At the time of the screening, the Museum of Estonian Architecture (2 Ahtri Str, Tallinn) will be holding the exhibition Interior Architect Aulo Padar. Significant Interiors to celebrate the 80^th birthday of the architect. The film introduces him as a person, a lecturer and a creator of spaces. Curators of the exhibition: Grete Veskiväli and Kadi Karmann.

We wish to thank: Eesti Arhitektuurikeskus, Maris Kerge, Eesti Arhitektuurimuuseum

Olivetti Perspective
Dir Davide Maffei
Italy 2020, 88 min
In English, Italian and German with English subtitles

In a journey through the Olivetti buildings in Italy and abroad, from the 60s to the 80s, the stories of the protagonists and archival materials are able to rebuild the imagination of a double perspective: the past one that the Ivrea-based company was able to erect beyond the national borders, and the future one that unites these architectures and their creation.

We wish to thank: Pietro Cesari