When it comes to the Winnipeg Architecture + Design Festival, the words of Napoleon Bonaparte feel apropos: \u201cIf you want a thing done well, do it yourself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
These are words that Susan Algie, the executive director of the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation who oversees the festival, took to heart fifteen years ago.\u00a0\u201cI myself wanted an opportunity to see the films that cover this whole range of conversation, but that we don\u2019t have access to,\u201d\u00a0she remembers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those conversations that Algie was not hearing involved artistic explorations of everyday design; how to make\u00a0communities better through architecture, urban planning, graphics and more.\u00a0She\u00a0set out looking for films on these subjects to screen,\u00a0originally relying on films from the United States and United Kingdom in addition to Canadian shorts and features.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fast forward to 2026, and the festival is now a\u00a0fortress for films from all over the world, including four Canadian premieres and two world premieres in its fifteenth year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so important,\u201d says Winnipeg director Danielle Sturk\u00a0of the festival. \u201cIt has a specific,\u00a0very focused programming which makes it fantastic because you know what you\u2019re getting when you\u2019re going there, even though there\u2019s such a variety of expressions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Local project shares history of social housing\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sturk\u2019s film Meeting a Moment \u2013 The Art of Social Architecture will be one of the films receiving its world premiere during the festival. The film speaks with a variety of voices about the history of\u00a0affordable housing in Winnipeg, from the Willow Park Housing Co-operative, the first permanent family housing\u00a0co-op in Canada, to the imagining of\u00a0Wehwehneh\u00a0Bahgahkinahgohn\u00a0space in downtown Winnipeg that was once the Hudson\u2019s Bay Company.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got so many firsts and so many pioneers in Winnipeg and this is one of them,\u201d says Sturk. \u201cThey were\u00a0meeting\u00a0a moment back then, and the film is about meeting that moment today.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
RELATED STORIES<\/p>\n
In addition to the history of affordable housing solutions in Winnipeg, the film also features conversations between experts and citizens about the cultural and social plans that go hand in hand with the physical design ideas for affordable housing.\u00a0\u201cThe shift culturally to\u00a0sort of accept… density\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0for those who\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0make it.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0how you live in community,\u201d\u00a0Sturk says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Building conversations about existence\u00a0<\/p>\n
The screening of Meeting a Moment takes place on the first of four days of films taking place in venues across the city.\u00a0Algie is keen to point out that there are many films relating to women in architecture and design, something that has become more prominent since the festival\u2019s inauguration.\u00a0This includes The Lady Architect, a film about the life of Margaret Buchanan, the first woman to graduate in architecture from the University of Alberta in 1937, and The Space Architect, a short film about NASA designer Constance Adams who designed prototypes for future habitats on the moon and on Mars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe films vary on different topics, but I think they all build to this idea of trying to make people demand more,\u201d says Algie. \u201cWe want to demand a better city. We want to demand buildings that are environmentally designed that\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0use more footprint than they need. And\u00a0I think all of these things\u00a0lead to the same discussion as Meeting a Moment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 15th\u00a0Winnipeg Architecture + Design Film Festival opens at noon on April 15 at the Dave Barber Cinematheque, with Meeting a Moment being screened at 7 p.m. that night at the Gas Station Arts Centre\u00a0with a Q & A session to follow. The festival runs until April 19. Tickets and more information can be found at the festival\u2019s\u00a0website.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to the Winnipeg Architecture + Design Festival, the words of Napoleon Bonaparte feel apropos: \u201cIf…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":{"0":"post-603560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-winnipeg","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-winnipeg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}