Director Patrick Keiller, 2000

(Running time: 78 minutes)

The modern predicament of UK housing is the
focus of this feature-length documentary by Patrick Keiller - London (1994) and Robinson in Space (1996).

After a 20-year absence, a fictional researcher, voiced by Tilda Swinton, returns to the UK to discover that despite the digital and economic boom, its houses are among the most expensive and most dilapidated in Western Europe.

In a supermarket, the kind of building to which the techniques of low-cost mass building have been successfully applied, she meets an old friend, falls in love and looks for somewhere to settle down.

The film includes rare footage from architects Constant, Buckminster Fuller and the Archigram group and explores - via statistics, humour and accident - how years of experiment have not affected how our homes are designed and delivered. 

Part of the RIBA's Home Season, 16 February - 28 April 2012| - talks, displays, film screenings and more.

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