Ada Karmi-Melamede sketching in a scene from “Ada – My Mother The Architect.” Photo: Provided

A documentary being released in theaters across the US profiles one of the most accomplished female architects in the world, and the impossible choices she was forced to make when it came to her career and children.

“Ada — My Mother The Architect” is directed by Academy Award-winning producer Yael Melamede and tells the story of her mother, Israeli architect Ada Karmi-Melamede. The documentary gives a rare glimpse into the career and personal life of the very private but uber-talented architect whose most famous designs include Jerusalem’s Supreme Court, Ben Gurion International Airport, the Open University in Ra’anana, Reichman University in Herzliya, and the Neot Hovav Museum and City Council in the Negev, among many other institutions.

Karmi-Melamede, a winner of the 2007 Israel Prize for Architecture, is described by others in the documentary as the “madam of Israeli architecture,” “a master, sculptor of light,” “a groundbreaking architect,” and “one of the most prolific and profound woman architects in the world today.” She was one of the few female students at the Architectural Association in London in the 1950s.

In the 1970s, Karmi-Melamede moved to New York from Israel, following her husband’s career. She spent nearly 15 years teaching at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture and was one of the few female faculty members at Columbia at the time. While teaching, she also contributed to major urban projects in New York, including a master plan for Con Edison, a study for the proposed Second Avenue Subway and a 1978 housing competition on Roosevelt Island. She did all that while raising three young children in New York.

In the early 1980s, after being denied tenure at Columbia, Karmi-Melamede returned to Israel to design the Supreme Court building. The project kept her in Israel for seven years, far away from her family, and as her career took off unexpectedly, she remained at a distance from her children and husband. “Ada – My Mother The Architect” expands on the decisions Karmi-Melamede made when it came to her career and motherhood, while highlighting the mother-daughter bond between the architect and her daughter behind the camera.

Karmi-Melamede’s father and brother were also architects. Melamede, the film’s director, was an architect before turning to a career in filmmaking.

“Ada is a particularly poignant figure for our time,” said the director about her mother. “She has spent the last four decades working in Israel, dedicated to a socially oriented architecture that reflects the values of the idealistic and socialist country she grew up with, while the values around her – professional and politically – have radically changed.”

“She became one of the most prolific female architects of her generation, yet almost nothing is known about her outside of Israel,” added the filmmaker, who co-founded the independent production company SALTY Features. “In the process, she navigated difficult personal choices and ignored the gendered norms of her time.”

Karmi-Melamede is in her 80s and has been working in the Jewish state since 1983, while her children continue to live outside of Israel. She also leads a firm of architects who are “decades her junior,” according to Melamede.

“She has spent her life thinking about architecture as a public good,” said the filmmaker. “But now, because of economic pressures, technological changes, and globalization, her dreams for placemaking make her deeply concerned about the profession’s future in Israel and around the world. Ada offers a unique model for practicing aspirational architecture and being an engaged and concerned citizen in a country she no longer recognizes.”

“The film began with questions about ‘place’ and ‘home.’ The Israeli story is often relegated to a binary lens, but the reality is far more complicated. As many of us are shaken by the fragility of the democracies we call home, Ada gives us ways to think about preserving despite the challenges.”

“Ada — My Mother The Architect” will be screened in select theaters in New York City; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Madison and Stanford, Connecticut; and Dallas, Texas. It will also screen at the Berkshire International Film Festival in Massachusetts and the Winnipeg International Jewish Film Festival in Canada.

Watch the trailer below.