Architecton
Architecton is a 2024 documentary film written and directed by Viktor Kossakovsky about the ways that stone and concrete architecture express the values of societies.
An extraordinary journey through the material that makes up our habitat: concrete, and its ancestor, stone. Filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky raises a fundamental question: how do we inhabit the world of tomorrow?
Kossakovsky presents a poetic meditation on architecture and how the design and construction of buildings from the ancient past reveal our destruction – and offer hope for survival and a way forward. He reflects on the rise and fall of civilizations while focusing on a landscape project by the Italian architect Michele De Lucchi, using imagery from the temple ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon, dating back to AD 60, to the recent destruction of cities in Turkey following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in early 2023.
The film had its world premiere in the main competition of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival 2024, where it was nominated for the Golden Bear and the Berlinale Documentary Film Award.