Abstract

 The paper looks at some of the documentary practices that are currently deployed to provide awareness and knowledge about the built environment in a way that is accessible to non-experts and thereby creates a new space for debate. Related to this is the question how architects reflect on their own role and contribution to society. In media portrayals, so-called starchitects are often represented as highly influential actors who conceive and construct new buildings quasi single-handedly. Surprisingly enough, however, architects currently play a rather subordinate role in such a central area as housing in India (Mehrotra 2020), which is of particular interest here. As will be argued in the presentation, recent documentary films open up a different perspective on a professional group that has to rethink its own practice and role in view of a profoundly changed social, political and economic context.