Evenings with DADo at Walsh Street: a screening of City Dreamers (2018) with an introduction by Tania Davidge!
‘City Dreamers’ is a documentary that delves into the significant contributions of four trailblazing women: Phyllis Lambert, Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, Denise Scott Brown and Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. Collectively holding the titles of architect, urban planner, landscape architect, curator, educator and activist, these women have been tackling complex and enduring design challenges such as urban sprawl, density, heritage preservation and greenspace for over seven decades. Featuring both new interviews and archival materials, ‘City Dreamers’ highlights the impact of these too frequently undervalued yet hugely influential designers, who brought their distinct viewpoints to a predominantly male-oriented space. It delves into how we can actively participate in molding our urban landscapes, enabling genuine coexistence within our cities. It is an absorbing film from Haitian-born director Joseph Hillel, an independent filmmaker now based in Montreal, Canada, and is a must-see for anyone interested in learning more about the enduring impact of these visionary women on our cities.
A Joseph Hillel Film.
80 minutes.
City Dreamers is presented in collaboration with Parlour.
Speaker:
Tania Davidge
Tania Davidge is a design advocate, architect, writer and Executive Director at Open House Melbourne. She is passionate about communicating the importance of good design to public audiences in ways that encourage people to think more deeply about the issues that shape our cities. Tania is also the co-founder of the architectural research practice, OoPLA and a passionate advocate for public space. As the president of the public space advocacy group, Citizens for Melbourne, Tania led the successful ‘Our City, Our Square’ campaign opposing the demolition of Federation Square’s Yarra building and its replacement with an Apple store.
Tania has extensive experience across architecture, urban design and strategic design. She has a PhD from the University of Melbourne focused on the development of creative strategies for engaging public audiences with architecture and the public realm and a Masters in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University in New York.
Evenings with DADo offer an intimate commingling of film and conversation both large and small, centred around diverse historical and contemporary stories of architecture, design, landscape and urbanism. Feature-length films, documentaries, shorts and animations all find a home in Robin Boyd’s living room at ‘Walsh Street’, the social, energetic hub of the Robin Boyd Foundation. Guest speakers contribute unique perspectives on the various film subjects, kicking off the living room conversation in a home which decidedly sought to reject convention.
DADo’s 2023 program is presented by Thandi Lane, Rebecca Roke and Andrew MacKinnon.
This event is generously supported by Konpira Maru Wines and Molly Rose Brewing.
Image: Still from “City Dreamers” – a Joseph Hillel production distributed internationally by Wide House. Photograph copyright Joseph Hillel, 2018.