The Two Jameses

The documentary was commissioned by the American Institute of Architects on the occasion of the building winning the R.S. Reynolds Memorial Award in 1965. "Honoring a significant work of architecture in which aluminum has been an important contributing factor," the award carried a prize of $25,000 — a hefty sum that would be over $200,000 in today's dollars. Yet by the time of the award the partnership of Stirling and Gowan was over: the two architects split in 1963, around the time the Engineering Building was completed. 

As explained by Ellis Woodman, author of Modernity and Reinvention: The Architecture of James Gowan, on Drawing Matter's website, "the fact that the collaborators of seven-years standing never share a frame in Parks’ film is perhaps not entirely coincidental." Even if Parks had to film the former partners separately, he framed them in a way — Gowan looking to the right and Stirling to the left — that gives the impression they are facing each other across a drafting table. With this in mind, the film is a revealing snapshot of two architects discussing their most famous — and last — joint creation.