26. June 2024
Fukuoka Prefectural International Hall (aka ACROS Building) in Fukuoka, Japan (1990). Photo: still from Green Over Gray – Emilio Ambasz.
Watch a trailer for Green Over Gray – Emilio Ambasz, a documentary that explores the revolution in green architecture through four projects designed by Emilio Ambasz, including the terraced ACROS Building in Fukuoka, Japan. The film is being shown at numerous film festivals this year.
Emilio Ambasz, born in Argentina in 1943, is an architect and industrial designer who also served as a curator and has written several books on architecture and design. Although influential in every field he has touched, these days Ambasz is being recognized as an early proponent for green architecture, of an ecological approach to architecture and design.
Green Over Gray takes a broad look at green architecture by focusing on four of Ambasz's buildings, one per decade from the 1970s to the 2000s: the Casa de Retiro Espiritual (1975), the Lucille Halsell Conservatory at San Antonio Botanical Garden (1982), the ACROS Building (1990), and the Ospedale dell’Angelo (2008). (Links point to the projects on the newly launched Emilio Ambasz Virtual Museum website.)
“Every building is an intrusion into the plant kingdom and is a challenge to nature: we must devise an architecture that stands as the embodiment of a covenant of reconciliation between nature and construction, designing buildings so intrinsically connected to the surrounding environment that they cannot be separated from each other.”
Conceived by Italian architect Fulvio Irace, Green Over Gray was produced by Muse Factory of Projects and directed by Francesca Molteni and Mattia Colombo. It features commentary by Ambasz as well as Tadao Ando, Kengo Kuma, Toyo Ito, James Wines, Barry Bergdoll, and others.
Green Over Gray made its world premiere on March 6, 2024, at the Milano Design Film Festival. The film will be shown at a number of film festivals and other events over the remainder of 2024:
- ICFF Festival (July, Toronto, CA)
- Architexture 2024 (July, Bologna, IT)
- Symposium international d’art contemporain de Baie Saint-Paul (August, Quebec, CA)
- ADFF (September, NYC, US)
- Film and Architecture (September, Prague, CZ)
- Film My Design (October, Cairo, EG)
- AFFR Architecture Film Festival (October, Rotterdam, NL)
- ADFF (October, Toronto, CA)
- ADFF (November, Vancouver, CA)
- BAFF-Beirut Art Film Festival (November, Beirut, LB)
- Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec (November-December, Quebec, CA)
Poster courtesy of Emilio Ambasz
Also watch “Trailblazer of sustainable architecture,” the sixth, and final, video in the Museum of Modern Art's Built Ecologies: Architecture and Environment video series that features “prominent architects and thinkers doing innovative work on environmental and ecological topics.” This episode focuses on Ambasz, whose gift enabled MoMA to create the Emilio Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and the Natural Environment, of which the video series is a part.