Koolhaas Houselife – Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine

The 58-minute film “Koolhaas HouseLife” by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine was first shown in 2008 being the first release of four documentaries called „Living Architectures“. The film was presented by the film makers and co-founders of BêkaFilms at the Barbican Centre in London and describes a much-noticed architectural masterpiece – the house in Bordeaux designed by star architect Rem Koolhaas.

The three-story house in Bordeaux was built for and around Louise Lemoine’s own father and was completed in 1998. It includes a prominent 3 by 3.5m open mechanical platform that moves up and down between three floors. The lift is big enough to accommodate both Mr. Lemoine, who become paraplegic after a car crash, and his desk and office. Rem Koolhaas said about that platform, that it should reassert the father’s male position within the family. However, it was not long before the social life around Mr. Lemoine ended, as he passed away only three years after the completion of his tailor-made patron house.

The documentary itself was filmed during one week inside the building and is divided into twenty-four thematic film chapters. The chapters stage specific elements or traits of the building that combined form the interpretation of what a living space is constituted of. It does not however depict the myth around the patron nor the dazzling images that characterize architectural photography today. The opening scene rather shows the quiet standing housekeeper Guadelupe Acedo as she rises silently using the mechanized platform. She begins her daily chores in the house as the camera follows and watches her, adjusting books, vacuum cleaning the floor, shifting the infinite flowing curtains. She is being observed solving daily, practical problems around the house, and walking through the building for minutes to check on the cleanliness of every corner. The focus of the camera is always respectful on the housekeeper – the house is only experienced through her movements and handgrips. She talks about the social life in the house, her work and not to forget also about architecture. In some instances, you can see other house workers, such as the gardener, the window cleaner or experts, looking for the cause of a small flooding inside the building after a torrential rain. These seemingly playfully absurd and humorous minutes are very similar to the depicted excerpt of Jacques Tati’s “Mon Oncle” screened in one scene on a television. The filmmakers give Guadelupe Acedo a voice, allowing the viewer to hear her talk about the life in the house and her everyday concerns, which gives the star architecture another dimension and depth.

In the second part of the film, parapets, windows, hatches and doors begin to rotate, open, dance and move. Not least two burnt pieces of toast pop out of a toaster. And in the end Louise Lemoine can be observed at night closing the curtains and turning off the lights of her house.

The film takes an in-depth look into the maintenance that the house requires to remain in an intact condition. The daily lives and routines of the housekeeper and others providing manual labour for the house is documented and how they tackle very practical aspects of the house. There is no sight of the poetic conceptual idea that generated the house or of the actual family that has been living there, including the film maker Louise Lemoine. Consciously Bêka and Lemoine keep an anonymity towards the expected inhabited life of the house to put a focus on the care directed at the house by its employees.