Building Bastille

This is a documentary about the incredible and unexpected story of the construction of the Opéra Bastille in Paris. Although he was completely unknown at the time, the Canadian architect Carlos Ott won the international competition for the design of the building. It was a mistake made by the blind jury, it turns out, which believed Ott’s proposal to be Richard Meier’s. Ott, members of his team, and Jack Lang, French minister of culture at the time, describe this unbelievable saga, in which the politics between François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac plays a prominent role. Despite the constant political tensions during the five-year-long construction period, the Opéra Bastille was delivered on time and is at the cutting edge of technology thanks to the determination of Ott and his team.