THE ARCHITECTURE OF DOOM presents a very different perspective on the Nazi phenomenon: it considers the Nazis' atrocities as a wholly rational extension of a fundamental tenet to beautify the world.

The film argues that a tremendously powerful motivation behind Nazism has long been overlooked. This force was an extreme aesthetic aspiring to return beauty to the world, to counteract the miscegenation and degeneration which had defiled it, through sheer violence. Building on this Nazi cult of the beautiful, THE ARCHITECTURE OF DOOM examines Hitler's eccentric cultural ambitions for the Third Reich, and the profound influence his obsession - and personal failures - with art played in the development of the Nazi party. Its propaganda machine created a climate which made brutality acceptable - and later necessary - to cleanse society, citing such programs as "Action Euthanasia," whereby mentally disturbed Germans were exterminated as a step towards purifying the "Volk." It was in this atmosphere that a bridge between the primitive aesthetic and the final Nazi barbarities was built.

The rise and disastrous consequences of Nazism is still one of the great mysteries of the twentieth century. Although many films describe the symptoms and catastrophic results of the Third Reich, none provides so thought-provoking an examination of its causes as THE ARCHITECTURE OF DOOM.

"Fascinating and complex... I don't know another movie where the Nazi world-view has been evoked with such measured austerity... As an argument, the movie is lucid and shocking." - J. Hoberman, Village Voice

"Chilling... well structured, carefully researched... [Hitler's] architectural renderings, as seen in the film, are derided as postcard art, but they seem to have been good enough to have landed him a job in a modern-day downtown firm. It makes you wonder how the course of history might have been altered if he had been given a little encouragement." - Michael Snyder, San Francisco Chronicle

"****[4 Stars - Highly Recommended!] The extraordinary story of how Adolph Hitler's idealized fantasies of a perfect antiquity became the worldview of the German nation... The intellectual and creative aspects of Nazi life are thoroughly documented here. Video, photographs, and an excellent narration serve to elucidate the programs central points." - Chas Hansen, Video Rating Guide for Libraries

"A small masterpiece of scholarship and imagination!" - Variety

"With a wealth of archival footage and other rare period materials, this documentary elucidates Hitler's obsession with social and biological degeneracy, which he measured against an idealized Greco-Roman past... A thought provoking perspective on the streak of radical utopianism in the Nazi movement. Highly recommended!" - Landers Film & Video Reviews

"Assuredly one of the best historical videos on World War II Germany. This film demands our attention, then holds us firmly by the throat for a full two hours. ARCHITECTURE OF DOOM argues that the Third Reich was in certain ways an aesthetic movement, a perversely misguided attempt to improve the world for German Volk and to reunite art with everyday life." - Ballast Quarterly Review