A new documentary charts Bjarke Ingels’ rise to the top

last updated 30 August 2022

BIG Time is a filmic portrait of Bjarke Ingels (opens in new tab), recorded over a period of five years from 2011 to 2016, which documents the starchitect’s professional career alongside his personal life. Following Ingels through preparation for his biggest project to date, filling the void of the World Trade Center site in New York City, the documentary is charged with the pressure, conflict and emotion that accompanies leading an international architecture firm.

Ingels is refreshingly open about his battles with building a legacy, learning to delegate control as his firm expands, and quite crucially balancing his work with his health and family life. Yet even in the face of trials and challenges, Ingels’ energy is infectious. Director Kaspar Astrup Schröder manages to capture the pace and the passion of the architect who continues to question convention and confront the status quo.

Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture Editor at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018) and Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020).