The silent power of architecture, interview with filmmaker Riaan Hendricks

Livegreenblog chatted with award-winning filmmaker from South Africa, Riaan Hendricks, who directed the Al Jazeera English documentary “REALITY BITES”, exploring the work of Nigerian architect Kunlé Adeyemi who is responding to the problems of overcrowding and floods along the coastline of Nigeria by developing floating houses and structures. 



How Important is Architecture to you personally?
It's a complex question with so many facets that it's hard to boil it down to a single element. I grew up in a poor community – where resources were always hard to come by. I had a particular love for racing pigeons from an early age. I spent a great deal of time building pigeon lofts for myself and others – sometimes armed with just a brick to assemble the structure! Wood was always in plentiful supply. You could just take a walk to the local community rubbish dump and find enough abandoned furniture or broken cupboards for that purpose.
Growing up in South Africa during the 80s and 90s essentially meant growing up during the apartheid years. All architecture was purposely employed to undermine and to keep the non-white sectors of our society underprivileged.
Today, in these former apartheid-engineered communities, poverty, unemployment, gross violence and crime is rife.
And as our society progresses – what was a race war during the 80s is turning into a class war today.
A great part of rebuilding our country and the mindset of our people is rooted in new approaches to urban design and the architectural structures that can express the new ideas and ideals of our society.



In the suburb of Gordonsbay where I recently moved, pavements or pedestrian crossings were never built – since it was meant to be an exclusively white privileged neighbourhood. To make matters worse, I just discovered that the cemetery down the road had its “non-white” section bulldozed and turned into an upmarket waterfront area called “Harbour Island”. After it was built, citizens struggled for ages to get recognition that something terribly wrong had taken place. Eventually, the City of Cape Town erected white crosses in memory of the countless desecrated graves - now forming part of the foundations of the Harbour Island development. The white section of the cemetery was left undisturbed. Of course.
Unless city planning starts ruling over the structures of old apartheid South Africa, people will continue to struggle to emerge from poverty in apartheid-designed communities meant to keep them there.

The part of the interview regarding the film “Reality Bites” is to be found on Al Jazeera.





Do you think that there should be more information about the capacity of architecture to transform our lives and help as a drive of social change?
Architecture seems to be a silent type of art. It affects people psychologically while having a hopefully practical and positive impact on their daily lives. On one level, it's good to explore the value of architecture with a modern mix of new media. But in the greatness of time, and over the span of our lives – well expressed architecture needs very little verbalization or additional proliferation of mass media to bring forth its value. Unless of course if the object becomes of such great political value that it can be used to shape a sense of common destiny for a nation – as seems to be the case with The Statue of Liberty.





Website Riaan Hendricks: http://vimeo.com/riaanhendricksfilm
Film REALITY BITES on Al Jazeera English
Images Courtesy of Al Jazeera, image of Gordon's Bay Cemetery by Riaan Hendricks