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Special Features
- Question and Answer with Director Nathaniel Kahn
- Scene selections
- Original Theatrical Trailer
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Product Description
Louis I. Kahn is considered by many historians to have been the most important architect of the second half of the twentieth century. While Kahn's artistic legacy was a search for truth and clarity, his personal life was secretive and chaotic. His mysterious death in a train station men's room left behind three families -- one with his wife and two with women with whom he had long-term affairs. The child of one of these extra-marital relationships, Kahn's only son Nathaniel, sets out on a journey to reconcile the life and work of this mysterious man.
Revealing the haunting beauty of his father's monumental creations and taking us to the rarified heights of the world's celebrated architects and deep within his own divided family, Nathaniel's personal journey becomes a universal investigation of identity, a celebration of art and ultimately, of life itself.
Customer Reviews
It's the personal nature of the film that does it. You see how personally Louis I. Khan took his edificial creations-- and how indifferent he was to other creations, namely his son, the filmmaker, who barely knew him. As the son travels the world to see his father's buildings, he uncovers much about his father. Two secret families. A rough childhood. Influence of Judaism. Influence of Hinduism.
The amateurish parts of the film are saved, in my opinion, by the sincerity of the son's journey. He's not afraid to reveal embarrassing truths about his father, nor make himself look awkward (as in the hilarious sequence at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem). Could the film be more slick, more polished? Sure. But like his father's scarred concrete walls, he is not afraid to let the flaws show.
Well it's not like that really. Although this film doesn't really give us architects a much better image either. Nathaniel's film is, or was for him, a film to find out some of the truths about his father, Louis Kahn, a mystical figure who would appear infrequently in Nathaniel's life. So, for him, the making of this film was a voyage of discovery, about a man, his father, who just happened to be an architect. And, umm, how shall we put this: not married to Nate's mother.
To the rest of us architects however, Kahn is not just AN architect, he is THE architect. His buildings, sublime and perfect, are all too few: one of the best is rarely seen by the Western world, as it is in Bangladesh. The film's journey along the way shows us both the human side (all too human - one wife and two mistresses....), and the architectural side: his office, archive clips of Kahn on site, and wonderfully catty comments from the arch Arch himself, Phillip Johnson. Could he perhaps be... a little jealous? Thoughts of Ann Rand's the Fountainhead spring to mind here....
For a documentary, it's fascinating, and well deserves to win the Oscar this year. As an architectural text book however, it's a must see, a must buy the DVD, especially if you are an architect, or are married to one, or want to know what makes them tick. Students: go and see this film right now. Teachers: gather up those artistic few in the class, and give them all a pencil after the film.
... Read more ›Louis Kahn, who died of a heart attack in New York's Penn Station in 1974, was an architect's architect-- he inspired many greats, including Phillip Johnson and Frank Gehry, but never attained the substantial commercial success that he craved. His major works were comparatively few, and include the Salk Institute, the Yale Art Museum, India's Institute of Management, and the capital of Bangladesh. Kahn's buildings distill form and light with a purity that many term mystic. Viewing Kahn's projects some 30 years after his death, it appears probable that Kahn's designs were ahead of their time. His commercial difficulties were also likely exacerbated by an intense, difficult temperament.
Kahn's professional life was only surpassed in complexity by his personal affairs. He fathered three children by three mothers, remaining married to his first wife while continuing to be involved with his other two families. If Kahn's designs were enigmatic, his personal affairs only compound his mystery. Two of the women who bore Kahn children, both architectural colleagues in his firm, are interviewed in the film. His children, reared separately, meet to examine their father, their various mothers, and their memories of his funeral. Both his wives and children speak of Kahn's magnetism and mystery-- one could be riveted by him, but the totality of the man was always hidden.
Nathaniel Kahn, Kahn's youngest child and only son, is the director and producer of My Architect. The film probes his father's professional and personal legacies with delicacy, wistfulness and regret. Nathaniel was eleven when Kahn died.... Read more ›
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