The sensation surrounding the persona of Bjarke Ingels is an intriguing phenomenon to behold. The first shots immediately set the tone. Ingels is backstage at an American TV show as the make-up artist gushes over him: "I change your face a little and you change the face of New York." After that we see him in his office drawing up his dreams on a large piece of paper. He explains his passion: "There is nothing more amazing than building buildings, that you try to imagine what kind of city or world it is you want to live in, and then you build it brick by brick. Just because you did it, that now becomes how the world is". In these few seconds the stereotypical image of the architect is confirmed; a solitary figure, in a white office sketching schemes composed of geometrical shapes, idealising the world we are supposed to live in, as if the world is shapeable and engineerable [maakbaar] by architects alone. In many shots he is depicted as an einzelganger, surrounded by people, yet alone and absent, seemingly caught up in his own mind. It makes me wonder how you can keep your life simple, stay humble, in his context of living. Can someone like Ingels still consider himself just one of the 7 billion people on this planet when people consistently treat him as superior and all-knowing? You can sense the tension and awe among crowds when he enters a room, either feeding his ego or making him uncomfortable - it is hard to tell. Perhaps the image gradually becomes an inherent part of oneself. We get more insights towards the end of the documentary, when tension slowly builds up. In the final minutes Bjarke is appointed one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Rem Koolhaas applauds Ingels with the following words: "Bjarke is the first major architect who disconnected the profession completely from angst". Simultaneously, and quite crudely, angst has by then caught up with Ingels on a personal level. As he reaches the age of 40, he starts fearing his own personal health and dreams. But all ends well: the curtain closes with a close-up shot of him smiling lovingly, tooth-achingly sweet at his new girlfriend in the back of a New York cab, while she is tying his bow: a cringy yet real shot, since this is the happiest he has looked throughout the entire 52 minutes. He is just a human being after all.
Source: BIG TIME -Edited by Aimee Baars