# The 24 Best Architecture Documentaries of All Time

> Starchitects, housing blocks and a few buildings that never got finished. Some films are portraits, others are arguments about how we should live in cities.

*By YPB Team · Published October 23, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-24-best-architecture-documentaries-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **My Architect: A Son's Journey** — score 1000/1000
   Nathaniel Kahn's 2003 Oscar-nominated portrait of his father, the architect Louis Kahn.
2. **Unfinished Spaces** — score 733/1000
   A 2011 documentary about the ambitious National Art Schools built in Havana after the revolution.
3. **How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr Foster?** — score 732/1000
   A 2010 portrait of Norman Foster, covering his work from the Hongkong bank to the Reichstag dome.
4. **Koolhaas Houselife** — score 639/1000
   A 2008 film that tours Rem Koolhaas's Maison a Bordeaux through the eyes of its housekeeper.
5. **Architecture of Doom** — score 639/1000
   A 1989 documentary tracing the link between Nazi ideology and its monumental buildings.
6. **Citizen Architect** — score 639/1000
   A 2010 film on Samuel Mockbee and his Rural Studio, which built homes for poor communities in Alabama.
7. **Urbanized** — score 523/1000
   Gary Hustwit's 2011 documentary on how cities are designed, and the people who shape them.
8. **Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud** — score 523/1000
   A 1996 documentary on the inventor of the geodesic dome and his vision of design for humanity.
9. **Sketches of Frank Gehry** — score 523/1000
   Sydney Pollack's 2005 portrait of Frank Gehry and how his buildings take shape.
10. **Rem** — score 523/1000
   A 2016 documentary about Rem Koolhaas and his restless approach to architecture, made by his son Tomas.
11. **The Pruitt-Igoe Myth** — score 523/1000
   A 2011 documentary on the rise and demolition of a St. Louis housing project and what really doomed it.
12. **Citizen Jane: Battle for the City** — score 523/1000
   A 2016 account of Jane Jacobs's fight against Robert Moses and top-down urban renewal in New York.
13. **Eames: The Architect and the Painter** — score 0/1000
   A 2011 film on Charles and Ray Eames and their influence on design and architecture.
14. **Antonio Gaudi** — score 0/1000
   Hiroshi Teshigahara's 1984 wordless film exploring the buildings of Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona.
15. **Frank Lloyd Wright** — score 0/1000
   Ken Burns's 1998 two-part biography of America's most famous architect.
16. **Oscar Niemeyer: Life Is a Breath of Air** — score 0/1000
   A 2007 portrait of the Brazilian modernist who designed Brasilia.
17. **Big Time** — score 0/1000
   A 2017 look at Bjarke Ingels and the building of his most ambitious projects.
18. **Visual Acoustics** — score 0/1000
   A 2008 film on Julius Shulman, the photographer whose images defined mid-century modernist architecture.
19. **Cathedrals of Culture** — score 0/1000
   A 2014 anthology in which six directors, including Wim Wenders, let famous buildings tell their own stories in 3D.
20. **The Human Scale** — score 0/1000
   A 2012 documentary following Jan Gehl's campaign to design cities around people rather than cars.
21. **Concrete Love: The Bohm Family** — score 0/1000
   A 2014 portrait of a German dynasty of church architects and their working relationships.
22. **Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision** — score 0/1000
   An Oscar-winning 1994 film about the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
23. **Sagrada: The Mystery of Creation** — score 0/1000
   A 2012 film on the decades-long construction of Gaudi's basilica in Barcelona.
24. **The Infinite Happiness** — score 0/1000
   A 2015 film following residents of the giant 8 House in Copenhagen designed by BIG.

Tags: movies, architecture, cities, documentary, design