The New Architecture of the London Zoo

Whilst the penguins waddle happily up the swirling ramps of Berthold Lubetkin's Penguin Pool at London Zoo Londoners, no doubt all living in far humbler and certainly more old-fashioned abodes, look on admiringly at these plump inhabitants of utopia. This 1936 film promoting Lubetkin's zoo architecture was made by László Moholy-Nagy, the émigré Hungarian artist, designer, photographer and Bauhaus visionary. This short, silent black and white movie is shot as a seemingly unbroken curve of motion, the camera's arcing progress suggesting the freedom and energy of a modern metropolis, one that happens to be inhabited by penguins.