Are there any movies or documentaries about civil engineers or architects?

Mr. and Mrs. Ames: Architects and painters are always together, doing a lot of design.

She is a painter who doesn't paint very much. He is an architect who dropped out of school without a license. Their combination has become the benchmark of modern home design, and their "Ames chair" is still a classic of contemporary designers after more than half a century. The film recorded the love and art of the couple after their death for the first time. The director arranged their private images and historical photos, and invited the couple's former colleagues, students and family members to tell the little-known story of "pioneers of modern home design".

This film is narrated by James Franco (starring in the Spider-Man series).

▲ When Charles and Ray met, the man was married and had a daughter, and he was "addicted to fantasy" all day, but this did not prevent the woman from falling in love with him. Charles never stopped firing the crazy fire of love at Lei, and in his letters, he repeatedly expounded the idea of "Ames Chair" and the common future for both sides to live together as artists. Compared with Charles' willfulness and stubbornness, Ray, as a woman, is hesitant about their possible future. Finally, his wife Catherine knew her husband's heart well and decided to let three people live at the same time.

▲ Later, Charles and Ray left their hometown and moved to California to set up Ames Studio. In their new life, they began to devote themselves to the physical design of Ames Chair. The idea of "Ames chair" is to abandon the complex, luxurious, bulky and useless decoration that has been used in the home industry for a long time, and replace it with a simple style. They took the lead in using lightweight plywood as raw materials to deal with the appearance, load-bearing, proportion and size of chairs in a more ergonomic way. "Ames chair" was very popular after it was put into the market. Its high quality and low price catered to the consumption ability and demand of the American middle class after World War II, and its unconventional design became the benchmark for designers to invest in modernist aesthetics.

▲ However, the controversy surrounding the great success of Ames Chair is also rampant. The designers who participated in the whole manufacturing process of Ames chair were dissatisfied with giving all the honors to Charles. They thought that they had also made efforts for this "greatest design of the 20th century". Richard Warman, the founder of TED, expressed his opinion in the film: "An author full of conscience and talent has the right to put his name on the best works, even if he takes up the labor of others in the process of creation."

▲ Another hot topic about the Ames couple is that Lei, as one of the main designers, is marginalized in front of the media public, who seems to only regard her as Mrs. Ames. This is related to the subtle gender politics in the United States (1950) at that time. Feminist consciousness has not yet arisen, and the contribution made by female artists is often easily overlooked. However, Charles likes to emphasize Lei's precise and far-sighted artist vision in front of the media. Ray, who studied under the abstract master hans hofmann, applied her collage, juxtaposition painting techniques and modernist colorimetry to the "Ames Chair" and other projects in the studio, and its importance has surpassed the simple sense of "my wife's help".

▲ The Ames are not only involved in design, but also in architecture, installation, photography and movies. Their artistic activities are also closely wrapped in the political atmosphere and information trend of the times. They peddled the image of "America polished by political censorship" to the Soviet people during the Cold War. In the last scene of the film, a forget-me-not symbolizing friendship made Khrushchev cry. They solved the problem of public acceptance of computers for IBM, personalized computers with cartoons, and eliminated the public's psychology of treating computers as dissidents, thus subverting the tradition of people accepting information.

▲ But the moon is cloudy and sunny. The harmony between the two could not resist Charles' distraction in marriage. Once again, he fell in love with the young version of Lei, telling a third party about his present fatigue and passion for the future. Lei, who was involved in this sensational extramarital affair, chose forbearance and silently waited for her husband to return to his family. In fact, to tell the truth, Charles can't live without Lei. Lei is a muse and a fighter who fights side by side with the perfect combination of his love and art. Every work in Ames Studio symbolizes the full cooperation between two Ames.

▲1978 August 2 1 day, Charles, who was obsessed with whimsy all his life, passed away, leaving Lei devoted himself to cataloging many works of the studio for half a century. Her other important job is to help young designers get out of the shadow of "Charles Eames" and let them pursue their own style. Shine on you more than blue. 10 years later, on the same day, ray also came to the end of his life. A friend revealed that the death of Charles that day was "intentional" by Ray, and her inner love for her husband never changed. Two Yi Musi stars shine in the universe, and the sentence "We don't engage in art, we solve problems" still echoes.

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