Abdul Nabi al-Afi, Architecton, Berlin International Film Festival, Davide Alioli, documentaries, film festivals, Maksim Gaubetc, Mauro Mella, Michele De Lucchi, movies, Nick Steur, reviews, Victor Kossakovsky
August 4, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Victor Kossakovsky
Italian, French and English with subtitles
Culture Representation: Filmed mostly in Europe and in Asia, the documentary film “Architecton” features a predominantly white group of people (with one Middle Eastern person) who are connected in some way to concrete structures.
Culture Clash: People have various opinions on what is attractive in the use of concrete for buildings and destruction.
Culture Audience: “Architecton” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky and nature documentaries.
The documentary “Architecton” gives an uneven but still immersive look at the beauty, ugliness and everything in between about architecture made of stone or concrete. The movie’s dialogue scenes distract from the majestic nature scenes. “Architecton” (which had its world premiere at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival) probably would’ve been a better movie if it had no spoken words.
“Architecton” director Victor Kossakovsky is known for making documentaries that don’t have spoken dialogue. For example: 2020’s “Gunda” (about farm animals) and 2018’s “Aquarela” (about various bodies of water). “Architecton” is mostly a series of scenes showing concrete in various forms, such as buildings (intact and destroyed). The most impressive scenes are those that show avalanches of concrete rocks.
Most of the documentary was filmed in Europe and Asia. There are several scenes of buildings getting bulldozed. “Architecton” also shows abandoned homes and other buildings from the devastating February 2023 earthquake, which hit Turkey and Syria, and was 7.8 on the Richter scale. An estimated 59,000 people died in this earthquake.
The documentary has visually striking images of a train convoy carrying coal and other rocks. There are also scenes of cement mixing and layering. The ancient temple ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon also get considerable screen time. The documentary’s spellbinding musical score by Evgueni Galperine is a true asset to this movie that is literally and figuratively rocky.
The movie’s dialogue scenes revolve around Italian architect Michele De Lucchi. He is seen with stone installation artist Nick Steur, as they plan and implement a stone circle construction in De Lucci’s backyard garden. De Lucchi also gets assistance from stonemasons Mauro Mella and Davide Alioli. Most of these conversations are mundane.
De Lucchi also chats with Baalbek megalith preserver Abdul Nabi al-Afi, who etched his name on one of Baalbek’s megaliths. There’s a bit of a language barrier because al-Afi only speaks French. De Lucchi knows some French but he is more fluent in Italian and English. The documentary also features Maksim Gaubetc, a Middle East ancient ruins specialist.
Toward the end of the movie, De Lucchi and Kossakovsky have a philosophical conversation in De Lucchi’s garden. Kossakovsky asks De Lucchi, “We do we build ugly, boring buildings when we know we can build beautiful ones?” De Lucchi admits that he’s guilty of this some of this type of drab architecture.
De Lucchi comments that he’s ashamed of a skyscraper that he designed in Milan, which De Lucchi describes as looking as boring as a box. He adds that part of the evolution of the world is figuring out what we did to nourish the planet and what we did to destroy the planet.
What you won’t see in “Architecton” are people inside these buildings. This documentary takes a “bird’s eye” exterior look at buildings, which might frustrate viewers who think exteriors of buildings tell only part of a building’s story. Some viewers might also dislike that there is no narration or no captioned information that tells where the movie’s scenes were filmed. “Architecton” is worth seeing only for those who have interest and patience in watching various ways that stone and concrete are timeless foundations of architecture.
A24 released “Architecton” in select U.S. cinemas on August 1, 2025.