Contemporary cinema’s preeminent chronicler of architecture and its intersection with the ever-present crisis of 20th-century modernity, Heinz Emigholz returns with an alternately mournful and sly treatise on how the presence—and, in some cases, absence—of municipal and communal building architecture is inseparable from capitalist ideology. Focusing mainly on cities and provinces in Argentina, Germany, and Bolivia, Emigholz’s latest film is a work of quiet observation and historical excavation. From slaughterhouses in Salamone to the flooded former spa city of Epecuén to the newly built Humboldt Forum in Berlin, the film demonstrates the effect of capital on public spaces, where creation and destruction go hand in hand, and as always, Emigholz makes the journey one of intellectual force and cinematic beauty.

준파시스트 건축가 프란시스코 살라모네의 아르헨티나 도살장들, 프레디 마마니 실베스트르가 볼리비아에 지은 유토피아적 건물들, 그리고 베를린의 복원된 궁 ‘시티 팰리스’를 통해 아방가르드와 정치 프로파간다를 오가는 건축적 모더니즘의 이중성을 탐구하는 다큐멘터리다.