Toward Human Architecture

Lewis Mumford: Toward Human Architecture (1979), screened on 16mm at the Seward Park Library last Wednesday. It opens seemingly midway, with the titular critic Lewis Mumford describing the Brooklyn Bridge. The camera pans across its entire span as commentary plunges the viewer into the full breadth of his knowledge around the technical, aesthetic, and social considerations of modern architecture and planning.

Through a series of talking heads, the 90-minute made-for-TV movie covered a short history of American architecture familiar to any ’70s introductory history survey, highlighting Mumford’s originating influence. So when I asked the librarian why they chose to screen this film now, I was expecting some argument on its relevance today, like when Nathaniel Owings speculated how his recently completed Sears Tower would still fare when humanity depletes our non-renewable energies. But the answer I got was much better: it is but one of many obscure films sitting in the library archives—the librarian just wanted to see what it was about.