fairly decent

mostly boring documentary that focuses too much on the families, and not enough on the great architect himself. picks up steam later on, but definitely not a must-see doc like the cover insisted it was.

Haunting Portrayal of an Engmatic Genius

My Architect rates five stars for its haunting portrayal of architect Louis Kahn.

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. This fine film is an homage to the accomplishments and failures of an enigmatic and eccentric genius, whose architecture inspired many and whose personal conduct combined love with selfishness and self-protection.

Highly recommended-- a strong five stars.

What a ripper!

I watched this movie because I am fond of Louis Kahn's architectural works and I took my wife along as a test if general public would be able to relate to an architectural movie. It just happened that this movie managed to captivate the audience's heart strings. The essence of the Director, Louis Kahn's "bastard" son (as the Director called himself) was to discover his father via interviewing his colleagues (I M Pei, Philip Johnson), his admirers (Frank Gehry), his critic (the name has escaped me but the person that blocked Louis' utopian vision of having a non-vehicle city of Philadelphia, his ex-employees, his mistresses, his friends (in Bangladesh and India and happened to be architects in their own rights), viewing his works (some soaring in spiritual heights and grandeur and some simply polarised opinions). As the movie concluded, the Director said succinctly that he finally rediscovered his relationship with his Dad and it's time to move on after finishing this project. As some people said in this documentary, it's essential that Louis is seen as a fallible human-being but not a being of extraordinary capabilities. They continued to say that whilst there's no denying he made mistakes, that's offset by all contributions that he made to humankind and a person that sacrificed so much for his art at the expense of his families and his livelihood. This documentary comprised of many aspects that I didn't know of Louis Kahn and irrespective if it's catering to architectural buff like myself or to people who simply wanted to engage in splendid human story, this documentary is it. Whilst documentary is a bit crass, like Louis Kahn's belief, honesty and integrity in art is pivotal and I think his son would make him a very proud father indeed. This documentary comes in square format. Soundtracks that came together with this documentary can be deemed as whimsical (from all fields imaginable) but some really rose to the ocassion namely the one by Beethoven. Highly recommended.