WAAROVER MEN NIET SPREEKT 3: EEN HEMEL OP AARDE

This program tries to offer a solution for the dilemma between the needs of citizens and the reality of both the housing environment and urban organisation, which have over the years completely got out of hand (just think of the daily traffic jams). Different existing realities are examined: Siedlung Halen (Bern), the University College in Urbino, the social services of Olivetti in Ivrea, the children’s hospital and the student home in Amsterdam, the holiday camp in Brusson, the South-Bank centre in London, the hotel village Avoriaz, the new city Cumbernauld (Scotland),… Part of the BRT (Belgian radio and television broadcast network) television series ’Waarover men niet spreekt’ (’What is left unspoken’).

Content:
00’00" Leader. 00’07" Young girls playing hopscotch in the street. Title. 02’02" Photographs and writings on the housing crisis by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Jules Verne, Vierre Kropotkine, Frank Lloyd Wright, Yannis Xenakis, Le Corbusier. 05’38" A town is a house. Hall of residence for students in a hillside near Urbino ; exterior and interior (showing in succession : hall, gymnasium, common-room, dining-room, stairs and students’ rooms). 09’45" A functional town for children : Aerial and exterior views of a holiday complex for children (Colonia Olivetti) near Brusson (Italy). The camera glides through open spaces. 12’05" A town considered as a complete living environment: streets, squares, general view of Ivrea. 14’10" House and town in a natural environment : Olivetti headquarters in the hills round Ivrea, exterior and interior : conference rooms, kitchen, dining-room, concrete facades. 17’35" New towns without frills : models, aerial views and exteriors of rows of apartment blocks in a modern dormitory town ("spic-and-span shanty-towns"). The camera wanders through concrete arcades, garages and streets surrounded by traffic arteries and the natural environment in Cumbernauld (Glasgow). 20’55" Photographs of the World’s Fair in London, futuristic models. 21’55" Apartment block in Avoriaz ; terraced roofs and arcades (communication between inhabitants). 23’10" London : bridge over the Thames and new museum complex on the South Bank (the structure of the city reflecting the way life has become disintegrated). 24’40" Exterior of the Economist Building, integrated in the historic City of London. 25’45" Apartments blocks in the mountains round Avoriaz. 26’25" The town as an expression of dynamic social life : a hall of residence for students (Herztberger) and an orphanage in Amsterdam (Aldo van Eyck). 28’10" Council house estate in lush surroundings, Kingsbury (London). 29’10" A torn considered as a complete living-space : residential districts in a natural environment, Harlow, Bern : Halen-Siedlung, the camera comes in from the garden and crosses the rooms in the house, children playing in the street, swimming-pool. 34’10" Credits. 34’40"
(Source: Jef Cornelis 1964 - 1990, Espace Art Contemporain : Maison de la culture et de la Communication de Saint-Etienne, 1991)