"Urbanized," well traveled but misses narrative thread.

Recently released to Itunes for downloading, Urbanized has grabbed the attention of practicing designers and urban dwellers alike. 

Documentary Film

Director: Gary Hustwit

Length: 82 minutes

Notable interviewees: 

• Rem Koolhaas
• Sir Norman Foster
• James Corner
• Jan Gehl
• Ric Scofidio

To a sold out theater on Oct, 31, 2011, in Washington DC, Gary Hustwit introduces his film with a warning: his documentaries have an absent narrative voice> But from the list of interviewees and the places he traveled, you can see he did his homework. For critics such as Dave Robson, contributing writer for “Sound on Sight”, the film is on his top 10 list of documentaries of the year for its focus on, “the importance of urban design in a rapidly urbanizing world.” But more often I have found critics, such as Alexandrea Lange, a columnist for “Design Observer”, that are aggravated by the way transitions are made in the film, “it was hard to sustain feature-length interest without a story arc.”

Although the film is missing a narrative thread I was impressed by the variety interviewees from such well renowned designers as starchitect Rem Koolhass to a community gardener named Mark Covington. This showed that Hustwit finds it takes a wide assortment of urban dwellers to create a healthy city and that one should look at a city through many perspectives to understand its needs. As a studied landscape architect I was aware of such projects as “The High Line” (interview with James Corner) and from my experience in Scandinavia, I was happy to see a focus on the expansion of bike lanes and pedestrian roads (interview with Jan Gehl). Something that I hadn’t known much about and found striking is Mumbai’s housing struggle. Because Mumbai is one of the largest cities in the world and the population has almost doubled in the past two decades, creating adequate housing has been a constant challenge. One of the most memorable interviews from “Urbanized” was with Sheela Patel, a Mumbai housing advocate, where she reviews statistics concerning sewage and how poorly their system is designed. She goes on to state that the government believes that more toilets would only attract more people, “as if people come to shit.”

When you look back on the interviews concerning the East Coast of the US, New York City seizes Hustwit’s attention. As mentioned earlier “The High Line” is a focal point in interviews not only with James Corner but with the well spoken New York City Chair of the City Planning Commission and Director of the Department of City Planning, Amanda Burden. Burden mentioned how much detail goes into the layout of a city and though it may not seem like it a lot of thought went into the way it looks. Throughout the film, it was difficult to even hear a whisper of the lessons learned in Washington DC as it was not considered even as.

In conclusion, as a practicing designer, I did enjoy “Urbanized.” However, having a narrative thread would have made the film more memorable and easy to digest. Maybe someone can further Hustwit’s study and transform his research into a film with a more developed story or thesis. With all of the celebrated designers interviewed for the film, I can see how Hustwit feels directing the film “was like getting a masters degree” in Urban Planning or Urban Design. Hustwit stated that he hopes to move onto new film genre and maybe that would be something like a fictional adventure story. Whatever Hustwit does next, I am excited to see it. A Hustwit fan has been born.