Ten films about contemporary architecture 9: Texas: Instant Cities
'Texas is a marvellous place to build, it's the last
American state, a great country, a separate country. They have the money and the desire to decorate their state and they're doing a bang-up job of it.' (PHILIP JOHNSON ) Texas is America's 'super state', the land for the super rich, a boom country for architects and developers. Available cheap land, no zoning laws, unlimited wealth and an expansionist attitude make Texas a unique place of architectural experiment - a great Lego kit where all the problems and permutations of modern architecture can be played out. In the pop-up cities of Dallas and Houston - built for big business - new concepts and new values are turning upside down the traditional perceptions of town and city planning. Huge corporations vie with each other for the best names in architecture - such as Philip Johnson and I. M. Pei who, in this programme, discuss their work, as well as the young Arquitectonica team from
Miami and William Canaday. In these cities, new values and new dimensions are being forged daily. They have very little to do with the perception people have of older cities. This is the 21st century in the making - a prospect which is intriguing, daring and deeply disturbing. Narrator ANDREW SACHS Film editor PAT O'GRADY
Assistant producer ROGER LAST Written and produced by PETER ADAM