My Architect: A Son's Journey

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Manufacturer: New Yorker Video
Starring: Edmund Bacon, Edwina Pattison Daniels, B.V. Doshi, Frank O. Gehry, Philip Johnson

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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9781567303728
Format: Closed-captioned
ISBN: 1567303722
Label: New Yorker Video
Manufacturer: New Yorker Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: New Yorker Video
Release Date: 2005-02-15
Running Time: 116
Studio: New Yorker Video
Theatrical Release Date: 2003-11-12

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Editorial Reviews:

One nonfiction film that truly creates a narrative journey, My Architect is filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn's engrossing search for his father. Louis Kahn, one of the most celebrated architects of the 20th century, died in 1974 and left behind a highly compartmentalized life, including two children born out of wedlock to two mistresses. Nathaniel interviews the members of this somewhat puzzled family, but his deepest experiences are visits to the buildings that his father made (such as the grand Salk Institute in La Jolla, California), culminating in an emotional trip to Bangladesh. Here, Louis Kahn designed a massive government complex, a soaring achievement (and fascinating paradox--a Muslim capital designed by a Jewish man). This film asks: where does an artist truly live? In his life, or in the work he leaves behind? Nathaniel Kahn takes an amazingly even-tempered approach to this, given his personal stake in the story, and the result is a uniquely stirring movie. --Robert Horton

Customer Rating:

Summary: the best movie ive seen all year
Comment: a great movie !! its a revelation-- compelling heartwarming heartbreaking-- informative- surprising--- it just gets better and better as we get to know the man the filmmaker is searching for -- from myth to all too human--- its the story of a great man and the price the families who loved him had to pay ---- the last scene says the most-- and the veritable miracle of his bangladesh capital building--- what it does for those lucky enough to use this amazing and gorgeous other worldly yet earthy strucure-- how it shapes lives and elevates them ! and the sheer beauty of it all--- and how this legacy can in the end compensate somehow for familial neglect-- for the benefit of all---this beauty this grand human effort has its costs !!!but the splendor this man has wrought for us-- and now thru the efforts of his son---given more exposure-- in this day and age of wars and money ruling the day--- its a welcome reminder of the things that last -that are of god and promote life ! of a different kind of hero and their works !it was quite literally for me a religious experience ! this film is in a class by itself and is trascendent and humbling !!! i sat thru it twice and was twice rewarded beyond all expectation !

Customer Rating:

Summary: Art as a spiritual journey...
Comment: I walked into My Architect: A Son's Journey expecting a solid documentary in a year of many wonderful documentary releases. Little did I realize that I would be receiving much, much more than that.

My Architect is an amazingly compelling story of a son's journey to discover more about the father he never really knew. As the film progressed, and drew me more and more into its fascinating discoveries, it reminded me so much of a real life Citizen Kane - A portrait of a prominent figure head, painted as indestructible, but just as human and fallible as those he seems to tower above.

Interview after interview, director Nathaniel Kahn peered into tearful eyes as the interviewee explained how Louis Kahn, his father, had touched their lives. Kahn was portrayed not only as an great architect, but as a friend, father, rival, cuckold, and savior depending on who Nathaniel happened to be talking to at the moment.

How could a man of such influence and integrity in the workplace be so careless with the family aspect of his life? How did he manage to juggle three secret lives? What would he have done had he not died of a sudden heart attack in a train station? Where was he going? My Architect meditates on these questions in such a beautiful and poignant way, it is impossible to not be moved by the discoveries.

Not simply an exploration of family conflicts, My Architect is also a poetic study of art as a political medium, as a career, and most importantly as a deeply spiritual journey.

Customer Rating:

Summary: If you love architecture, you'll love this movie
Comment: I love architecture and studied Kahn in college. While I wasn't initially interested in his life, I really found it to be fascinating.

The photography and music are superb, I wish I saw this movie in the theater. I orginially rented it but will purchase the movie and savor it for years to come.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A Deadbeat Dad Showering Gifts on the World
Comment: I bought this documentary on a whim because I enjoyed "Supersize Me" and "Farenheit 9/11." My sense now is that the genre of the documentary is entering a golden age, since the ones I've seen lately, including "My Architect," seem superior by far to mainstream dramas and comedies.

The basic premise here, easy to grasp, is the journey of the "illegitimate" son of American architect Louis Khan to discover who his shadowy father was by talking to people who knew him and by viewing and assessing his dad's work. This yields much humor and pathos. The people the younger Khan speaks to include A-list architects like I. M Pei and Phillip Johnson as well as ordinary Joes and are an interesting lot with compelling things to say about the Jewish design wizard.

Exploring Khan's buildings through his son's camera proves an even greater treat. Highlights include the sprawling sea-splashed Salk Institute on the California coast and the stunning light-suffused Capital building in Dacca, Bangladesh. What really endears us to the subject matter is that neither the weaknesses of the architect father nor his documentarian are swept away; rather they're discussed openly, and both come across as real--fragile flawed but immensely talented.

This film, a great balance of educational and emotional elements, is so worthwhile and enjoyable it's encouraged me to give the whole documentary genre a fresh look. I appreciate a discussion of architecture that wasn't dumbed down for the audience, such as when the film discussed the influence of ancient ruins, bombastic and timeless, on Khan's work. Bravo!

Customer Rating:

Summary: Poignant Journey Through Architecture...
Comment: Architecture, unlike other art forms, allows for interaction with the art as people live, work, and spend their leisure in the erected structures that architecture creates. Louis I. Kahn lived to create useful monumental masterpieces that now can be found throughout the world in places such as La Jolla, California, Dacca, Bangladesh, and Ahmedabad, India. These and other buildings by Kahn changed the perspective of architecture, as contemporary architects study them. In the light of this, Kahn was a renowned and bankrupt architect who was discovered dead in the men's room at Penn Station without identification papers.

In My Architect: A Son's Journey the audience gets to follow Nathaniel Kahn's expedition to discover whom his father was, as he never got the opportunity to get to know him as a child. On this venture, the audience, learns that Nathaniel was one of two children that Louis had out of wedlock. Louis had two affairs outside of his marriage in which he had children. It becomes an emotional turmoil for him and his relatives, as he begins to dig up the old news of his father. Nonetheless, Nathaniel remains firm on continuing his discovery of his father, as he meets with his other sisters and family members. Along the way, he learns that it was suggested to have him aborted while he still was a fetus. Also, he learns that Louis' wife, whom he stayed married to throughout life, never acknowledged him or his sister who were born out of wedlock.

Nathaniel visits with architects that praised and critiqued his father while all expressed their admiration for his determination to make artistic masterpieces. Employees of Louis Kahn tell both fond and callous memories of him, while all agree that he had a noble work ethic and mental toughness. For example, one former employee tells a story of how he received an assignment to build a model with very short notice, as Louis had to go on a business trip. Three days later when Louis returned from his trip he called him at three o'clock in the morning and told him that the model was crap. In another interview an architect in Bangladesh describes him as next to divine, as he designed the National Assembly in Dacca, which signifies that country's independence.

Despite what people might think they know of Louis I. Kahn it becomes obvious in the documentary that this Jewish boy who emigrated from Estonia when he was just a child had a tough upbringing--an upbringing that colored his life, as he was willing to reach out to all people of the world regardless of ethnicity, religion, and race. His care and nurturing affection spread his joy of architectural art throughout the world and is evident through his work in Dacca, Bangladesh, as he was a Jew helping a Muslim country erecting their symbol of freedom. Maybe, as suggested in the film, his love was so great that he did not have the ability to be there for those closest to him. Maybe, Nathaniel was therefore able to discover who his father was through his journey in My Architect: A Son's Journey.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Best documentary I ever saw, and I've seen a bunch.
Comment: My girlfriend and I saw this film at a special screening in the Chicago Opera House, built in 1898, as part of the American Institute of Architects convention. Seeing such a moving film of one of America's premier architects in the company of several thousand architects in such a magnificient structure made for a truly memorable evening. Afterwards Mr. Kahn took questions. The film is about the architect, his work, and about family relationships. I was so moved by the film, I wrote to the production company and asked to be notified when it was available on DVD, which they did. I just bought a copy for my father's birthday and will buy more for other close friends.

Customer Rating:

Summary: An endearing portrait of one of America's great architects
Comment: You don't have to be an architect to enjoy this movie. Nathaniel Kahn makes this a very personal journey as he ferrets out the details surrounding his father's mysterious death in Pennsylvania Station in 1974. Along the way you get treated to some wonderful insights into Kahn's work and separate lives by those who were closest to him. Louis Kahn was a powerful creative force and as such drew a lot of persons into his orbit, but at the same time Kahn had no idea how to manage his life, collapsing to the floor of the train station on his way back from India, and dying of a heart attack that left a deep void in the architectural world. But, it was also revealed at his funeral that Kahn had several close personal relationships in which he fathered three children from different women. Nathaniel is the youngest of these children and the only son. As such, it seems he assumed the burden to tell the story of his nomadic father. Nathaniel doesn't know much about architecture, leaving it to the architects he interviewed to relate the importance of Kahn's work to the viewer. Nathaniel is closer to home when he interviews family and friends of Kahn, touching deep emotional nerves, and giving this film its impact.

Customer Rating:

Summary: What a ripper!
Comment: 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.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Just Wonderful
Comment: Nathanial Kahn tells the story of a son's search for the mystery of his father through this one son's personal search. The story is emotionally gripping. The journey includes some fantastic visuals of buildings designed by Louis Kahn (example, the Salk Insititue), biographical information on his life, and interviews with prominent architects such as I.M. Pei, Moshe Safdie, Phillip Johnson and others.

The film also presents a working architects office and interviews with those who people such a world (even taxi drivers). A touching interview is with a man who viewed Louis Kahn after he had had a heart attack in Penn. Station...the viewer can feel the emotion of the son in the need for this interview (Nathanial was eleven when his father died). Louis Kahn's death was a front page NY Time's story.
There is a design to the film that interweaves these various threads with remarkable honesty and objectivity.
This documentary film is truly a work of art (including the selections that comprise the musical score). It is one to own.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Phenomenal architect, phenomenal film
Comment: This film works just beautifully, both as a personal narrative and as an exploration of Kahn's visionary architecture. I was utterly floored by the emotional impact of Nathaniel Kahn's journey into his father's past. As Kahn's appreciation of his father's professional accomplishments expands, so, too, does his sense of loss for the absentee father whom he knew only fleetingly, and who died when he was eleven. By the end of the film, when we see the reverence with which Kahn is viewed in India (where he is considered a sort of yogi or guru for his transformation of matter into "light and silence"), and in Bangladesh (where his enormous personal and financial sacrifice to build the governmental center made him a martyr in the eyes of many), we may come to view his problematic moral and family choices as simply the byproduct of a mind focused on universal themes. But this does not negate the intense pain he caused his several families, and it is instructive that someone so generous and talented was also the instrument of so much personal suffering to those who loved him most. The filmmaker explores all of this with unflinching honesty, enhanced by wonderful camera work and an evocative soundtrack; he has created a work of art entirely worthy of his famous father's legacy.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Some people choose to love things rather than people
Comment: This is a movie by Nathaniel Kahn, about his father, Louis I. Kahn, who is regarded as one of the great architects of the 20th century. Notice that the movie is titled "My Architect," not "My Father." Nathaniel does not know much about his father; Louis Kahn died when Nathaniel was 11. He died in Penn Station, in the restroom, and his body was unclaimed for three days because he had scratched out the home address on his passport and no one knew who he was. Nathaniel's mother told him this was because his father had decided to leave his legal wife and daughter, and come to live with Nathaniel and his mom. Up till this time, Louis had only come to visit Nathaniel and his mother about once a week, at night, and they drove Louis home before morning, letting him out a few blocks from his home.

This film is shot documentary style. Nathaniel is now in his 30s, and he wonders if his father ever had any intention of actually living with them. It has been 20 years since his father passed on, and most of his father's friends are now in their 80s. Nathaniel decides to go talk with some of them and try to get a better idea of who his dad was. He has also decided to visit all of the major buildings his father designed, hoping to get some feeling from his dad's work about what kind of person he was, and hoping to feel some connection with what his father has left behind. There is archival footage of Louis Kahn at work in his office, lecturing university students, and surveying the construction of his buildings.

What Nathaniel discovers is that most of the people who knew Louis Kahn understood him through his work, but did not know very much about his personal life. He was a difficult man in many ways, and stories are told about how he worked his employees so hard that he would not allow one of them to leave work and be at the hospital when the man's child was born. Some of the people that Nathaniel goes to talk to are nice until they learn that he is Louis' "bastard son," and then they don't want to talk to him anymore. Some of the people tell him that his father was a genius and that his work was too big and important to allow him to focus on something as insignificant as his family. Some of the people knew about the "second family" and when they find out who Nathaniel is, they cry.

At some point, Nathaniel discovers he has ANOTHER half-sister, also the product of his father's extra-marital affair with an employee. But that family moved on, whereas Nathaniel's mother spent her life hoping and dreaming and waiting for Louis to choose her over his wife.

So the entire movie is a search to find out what kind of person Louis was, and for Nathaniel to sort out his feelings for his father. He wonders, are he and his half-sisters a family??? Did his father care about people, or only about buildings?

At the end of the movie, he still doesn't have the answers about why his father did what he did, or whether his father intended to come live with them, or even if his father loved his mother at all. He finally meets his two half-sisters, he talks to aunts and uncles on both sides of his family (some of whom did not know he existed), he challenges his mother about why she never moved on and found a life companion, and finally he decides that it's time to let go of the father he never had.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Moving Family Documentary
Comment: Nathaniel Kahn is looking for the father who abandoned him and died in a Penn Station bathroom when he was eleven. His father happened to be the world-famous architect Louis Khan, who we learn had three separate families, each with a child (only one legitimate), and who died bankrupt and his body unclaimed for days because he had scratched out his address on his passport. Nathaniel visits his father's works around the world and interviews his half-siblings, his mother, other family members, and Khan's former colleagues in an attempt to piece together his father's personality. What emerges is a portrait of a man riding the fine line between genius and madness; at turns an egotist, a charmer, a lover, an artist, a shyster. Only watch if you love architecture or a good dysfunctional family story.

Customer Rating:

Summary: My Architect
Comment: Excellent. Should have won an Academy Award for Best documentary film over "Fog of War."

Customer Rating:

Summary: soulful monuments in stone, mediocrity in flesh
Comment: The pathos in this documentary comes from witnessing the human toll exacted in realizing our dreams. No doubt Kahn is a great architect: recovering ancient fundamentals utilizing modern means, creating on a grand scale. But the price, the unfulfilled yearning of those around him...oh, how we wish the film-maker, the architect's son, would have had more distance in plumbing its depths.

Yes, we are treated to interviews of family members. Kahn had three families going more or less simultaneously. The director is the architect's only son. His mother had a deep love and admiration for her long term lover and fellow architect. Naturally, she wished Kahn would have married her. But having met a man with such a broad soul she allowed herself to be content with raising his son and carrying on their relationship in secret(including co-designing some of his buildings). If anyone holds the key to knowing what Khan is about it's her. And yet, her son, the film-maker, is so busy with his own agenda of what he wished would have been that he treads on her words. He silences her when she is on the verge of yielding the secret of the love she still has for Khan, for what is great in her and what was great in their love.

Khan had this effect on those around him. The interviews in India and Bangladesh are moving testimony of how people are deeply moved by touching greatness. In the end this seems to be what the architect himself wrestled with. He had a gift of vision and without manifesting it the world seemed poor. His obsession to realize it left the world richer in ways but detracted from those around him in others.

The imperfection of the documentary is part of the testimony of what greatness does, leaving us scarred but somehow greatful.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Genius in Design, but a Flawed Person
Comment: In some ways, after watching this film I feel like I know Nathaniel Kahn much better than his father, the great architect Louis Kahn. Certainly he is ambitious, with his attempt to merge two stories into one documentary. One story centers around Nat's exploration of his father's relationships; his relationship with Nat the son of one of Louis' mistresses, Louis's relationship with his wife and two lovers, and how Louis dealt with his clients, colleagues and the world. It's not a story that can be told in a simple manner. Louis Kahn was an incredibly complicated genius, one whose dealings with people were on a different plane than most. How better to explain the reality of a man with three almost simultaneous families?

The other story is a bit more straightforward in that it delves into Kahn's body of design work, which ranges from compact bath houses and homes, to large research buildings and almost epic-sized governmental complexes; with a floating (and traveling) concert hall thrown in for good measure.

I shudder to think how long this film could have been, had not Nathaniel had the restraint to keep it at a manageable length. Combining the tale of a basically flawed human being with an examination of a creative genius' work is ambitious enough, factor in the fact that the flawed human being and the creative genius are the father he barely knew and you have an incredibly personal film.

There is a lot to appreciate here, from Nat's conversation with his two half-sisters and other relatives; to those with colleagues who knew of Louis' semi-secret offspring, men who watched with wry or detached amazement at the person that was Louis Kahn. From the architectural perspective, Nat proves to be a critical and reverential documenter. Buildings that look striking, yet fail from a functional perspective (like some of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, some of his buildings had roofs that leaked) are included along with those that achieve masterpiece status for both the outside observer and those who live and work within.

Nat's work is augmented by earlier footage from other documentarians that allow us to see Louis in his element, strutting down the street, sketching a design or talking about his ideas. Comments from clients and associates often reveal more about themselves, particularly an urban planner for the city of Philadelphia whose own ego would seem to be the major cause of his conflicts with Louis (forty years later he is just as passionately convinced about how right he was and how wrong Louis was, which makes for a most amusing, albeit small, segment).

The paradoxes in the life of Louis Kahn are many -- a Jewish immigrant whose crowning achievement is the capital building for a Moslem nation, yet he had no major commissions for a Jewish synagogue or temple despite numerous preliminary designs and competitions. He was also a distant, but not completely out of touch father, for his daughter with his wife and the son and daughter of his two mistresses. And finally, we have the world famous architect, a man regarded as certainly one of the most prominent designers of the Twentieth Century, yet he died penniless in a train station with a passport that he himself had defaced. Nathaniel's search for the meaning and inspiration behind Louis, his life and his work is a story that makes for a very interesting film. He may never make a more personal film, but I hope he uses his talent to do so with many other subjects.

Customer Rating:

Summary: fairly decent
Comment: 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.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Haunting Portrayal of an Engmatic Genius
Comment: 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.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A beautiful journey
Comment: I cried and was very deeply touched I dont know crap about architecture or who Louis Kahn was. This has to be one of the best documentaries I have ever seen. I was on the journey with Nathaniel 100%. There is one part where Nathaniel interviews a man who years ago discovered his dad dead in Penn station. It was the weirdest encounter -almost like an alien encounter.
This movie was so facinating to me, every bit of it, that I almost had an out of body experience. It was pure magic and I will never again pass up an opportunity to look up and around any building again. At the end, in Bangladesh, it was amazing.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Great, moving film!
Comment: I had parallel feelings running in my head while watching this film. I missed the chance to see this film in a theatre in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and finally caught up with the film with a DVD. In short, this was a remarkable film capturing many aspects of Louis and Nathaniel's life. I wish I saw it in a theatre.

It really struck me hard how Louis had juggled the three different relationships. The children who grew up without an 'official' father have missed a lot in their life, and Louis probably did not any more space in his life than he gave them in weekends or in other breaks from his wife's home. That makes it a sad film, realizing the agonies of the families over years (e.g., Nathaniel realizing that he never spent a chirstmas with his dad or his mom waiting in Maine and believing that Louis really wanted to move in with her finally).

The film was Nathaniel's spiritual journey - and even though I wish the film had more footages of Louis' great creations, the motive of the film was different. Nathaniel, himself a genius, has done a great job in telling the story and weaving all the pieces together with the emotional discoveries of his life. I hope he makes good use of the many hours of other footages to make a different film about Louis' work.

Lastly, Louis Kahn was a great architect. Even though he found success quite late in his life, he has left some great designs which show his genius and will continue to inspire many more designs on this planet. His ultimate masterpiece, the Capitol building in Dhaka, was the perfect ending for the show. Also important was the impromptu but eloquent and emotional outburst from Architect Shamsul Wares, which helped to bring a closure to the film, Nathaniel's journey, and Louis' ideas.

Customer Rating:

Summary: look at architecture from a different angle
Comment: The film tells the story of LK from a perspective totally different from what reading architectural books about him can get. Books and photos about him and his buildings could never convey the same feeling the movie aroused. It is the director's personal journey, yet it has gone beyond a melodramatic story of search, healing and reconciliation of a complicated family (though i also appreciate that very much)to the bigger picture of the spiritual connectiveness his work has incurred amongst family members, colleagues, and those gifted with his buildings .
This is so much in line with LK's thinking and design..the timelessness of the human spirit communicating. Kahn should be happy knowing how his work has influenced and inspired so many people in various ways.
The film does not deify kahn. People could also misunderstand him and his buildings.. how sad one could be seeing the dilapidated state of the jewish bathhouse.

You feel connected to him after watching the film. Everyone loving his work should try to watch it.

Customer Rating:

Summary: No Title
Comment: Very well done. Recommended to all, Architects or not. A glimpse at the emotional affect great buildings and not so great buildings and the man that penned them can have on society.

Customer Rating:

Summary: I Kahnt see this again
Comment: Why does everyone keep crying in this? Alright, Nathaniel is the sentimental son of Louis Kahn, and if it werent for his sentiments, we wouldnt have this film in the first place, but why is it so sad?
I dont think I can see it twice, but maybe its worth seeing once. Let me suggest you something, maybe you see this on BBC as a documentary and life is good, but spare yourself the money buying the DVD...

Customer Rating:

Summary: A moving recounting of a song attempting to reconnect with his father
Comment: For the five years that I was in grad school at Yale I went almost every week to the Yale Center for British Art, which was the last design of Louis Kahn's to be built (the National Assembly in Dacca was completed after Kahn's death but was designed earlier). It was difficult to see the building's exterior with any kind of scope, since other buildings surrounded it. But I have rarely loved a building so much on the inside. After entering the building you would ascend to the first floor through the monolith shown in the film (actually the casing of a spiral staircase) to confront two massive George Stubbs's canvasses. That initial space was magical, not just because of the two extraordinary paintings, but because of the space and the way it welcomed so much light into it. I used to love to go up to the section where the Turner's and Constable's were kept and lean on the railing and gaze about.

So, I approached this film as someone who felt a debt of gratitude to Kahn like I've felt to no other architect except Louis Sullivan (for reasons I won't delve into here). I felt that I had been a direct recipient of his largesse, so I was very interest to hear of Nathaniel Kahn's attempt to reconnect to his father. I actually knew next to nothing of Kahn's life when I saw this film. I knew of several of his buildings, including the National Assembly in Dacca, the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, and the Salk Institute, but I knew nothing of Kahn himself except that he died under bizarre circumstances and that he was an immigrant.

The details of Kahn's life were quite astonishing. The short version is that although he was married to the same woman for most of his adult life, he had children by two other women and maintained at least some connection to those children. Though not a bigamist, he clearly maintained three families. Nathaniel, the maker of the film, was his youngest child, and was eleven when Kahn's body was identified three days after being found dead in a bathroom in Grand Central Station in New York. He was found to be a half million dollars in debt, so he was in effect bankrupt. His architectural firm build a surprisingly small number of buildings, but as I. M. Pei noted in the film, what he lacked in quantity he made up for in quality, building a number of indisputable masterpieces.

Nathaniel's yearning to connect with his father and to come to some kind of understanding of who he was and why he lived his life the way he did dominate the film. Because he attempts to discover his father through his architecture, we get to know both Louis Kahn the artist as well as the man. I was amazed at how much casual film footage there was of Kahn, film of him simply walking down a sidewalk with his coat flung casually over his shoulder, film of him doing utterly mundane and everyday things. What emerges as Nathaniel interviews many of Kahn's former colleagues, friends, and lovers was a portrait of a man who was uncompromising (probably the source of his lack of success at attracting a large number of commissions), charismatic, likable, and a bit of a bastard. He seems every inch the lovable rogue. And also very much an enigma. For instance, although a few knew that Nathaniel was Kahn's son, and although he certainly spent a fair amount of time visiting Nathaniel, many people close to Kahn did not know he had a son. At one point in the film a relative of Kahn upon hearing that a man alleging to be Kahn's son was making a documentary of him, declared that Kahn had no son. Nathaniel calls him and they meet and talk and he is clearly accepted as Louis's son, but it is strange that a couple of decades after Kahn's death they unaware of Nathaniel's existence.

This is a film that is equally enjoyable as a study of the work of a truly great architect and as one man's search for father and family. For me the most touching moment in the film may have been when the three children of Louis Kahn (by three different women) meet in a home he designed and discuss what it means to be a family. They seem to agree that a family occurs when people decide to be family. These three seem to affirm a bond between them created by a most perplexing father.

Customer Rating:

Summary: In search of . . .
Comment: Eleven years old when his father, architect Louis Kahn, died in 1974, filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn sets out in search of the man he hardly knew by visiting the sites of his architectural creations, from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, to the capitol building of Bangladesh. Along the way, through interviews, old footage and photographs, much is revealed about this elusive, enigmatic, and often difficult man - including a closely guarded private life with children by three different women, while remaining married to only one of them.

A personal film documenting the life and career of a public man, "My Architect" is wonderfully engaging, leaving the viewer with a complexity of emotions as we listen to the comments of those who admired him, those who loved him, and those who did neither. Especially revealing are the interviews with the two women, colleagues in his firm, who became romantically involved with him and years later still treasure the memory of him. An architect in Bangladesh sums up the final image of a man whose work was inspired by a kind of mystical genius and who gave his love to mankind.

Moods mix and shift gracefully in the film from the discomfort of seeming to disagree with his mother's reverent estimation of the man to the sweeping effects of time-lapse photography and a whimsical scene of rollerblading around the great courtyard of the Salk Institute. Included in the DVD is an interesting and informative question and answer period between the filmmaker and a small theater audience, with additional scenes not used in the film.

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Summary: Interesting and Intermittently Touching... But Could Use a Little More Structure!
Comment: Nathaniel Kahn's semi-touching/semi-nebbishy account of trying to "discover" his famous father, architect Louis Kahn, was of great interest to me. But then, I've always wanted to be an architect (does the name "Art Vandalay" ring a bell?), so I'm not sure if my opinion of this movie is representative of general perceptions of this movie.

Even so, I've never been that amazed by Louis Kahn's work; it always seemed too cold and brutal for my tastes. But after watching this film and understanding that Kahn was striving for genuine monuments that stood the test of time, I can see them in a new, more appreciative light. And learning of Kahn's circumstances -- a scarred Estonian immigrant eventually rising to a position of great repute -- humanized for me a man whose style always seemed impersonal and distant.

While the film does meander, it was particularly interesting for me was to hear famous architects speak firsthand. They include Philip Johnson (charming and funny), Frank O. Gehry (not much to say, really), and I.M. Pei (warm and polite). And in marked contrast, there's Philadelphia city planner Edmund Bacon (father of actor Kevin Bacon) who comes across as a near-violent creep. Oy vey!

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Summary: heart wrenching,gorgeous film
Comment: I was held in rapt attention throughout the course of this marvellous,awe inspiring documentary.I liked it so much that i had to watch it a second time straight away!'my architecht' is up there with 'capturing the freedman's' as one of the all time great documentaries.
Among the many interviews (200hrs of footage were reduced to less than two)i suppose i was particularly shaken by the bad guy of the piece (Edmund Bacon)who goes completely over the top in his condemnation of Louis Khan's forward looking proposals for Philadelphia.i've rarely seen such anger let loose!
The various family entanglements are heart wrenching as are the final scenes in Bangladesh when you see how the locals adore the monumental buildings Khan has created for them.
The best aspect of the soundtrack is some yiddish sounding violin music and Beethoven 9.

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Summary: Secret Lives: Second Chances . . .
Comment: Louis I Kahn was a nomad and a juggler. He trekked the planet to build soaring structures. I think his greatest work was his last: the capital of Bangladesh. Its magnificent open spaces, its cathedral-like interior is his testament. His works were few; he lost clients with his singular vision, his artistry.

His son captured his complex life on film with honesty, integrity and sadness. Mr. Kahn somehow juggled three relationships, three families, but this never distracted his art. Like his father's genius, this film rises to the task; capturing through memory, interview and experience the majesty of his Mr. Kahn's work.

This film captures a man's search for his father, and, in a transcendent way, a father's search for beauty. I loved this film on so many levels. Louis Kahn began his great work at fifty. He never wavered in his pursuit of truth; there is a lesson in this.

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Summary: you won't regret.
Comment: I am the fan of Kahn. director focuses too much on his private life and his family problem. but if you like Kahn's work, you must watch this.

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Summary: Where are the subtitles?
Comment: It's a very good documentary.
I'm from Brazil and when i bought this product i forgot to see if there was subtitles in portuguese.
And there isn't. So if you are from another country remenber to chek this item before you buy it.

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Summary: a true artist
Comment: One of my all time favorite movies. What a great documantary and story of a very complicated man and his effect on such a vast multitude of people of all levels and across the world. And then his families, and the son who tells the story and his journey and questions, you can feel how he's attempting to grapple with all that he discovers, that inspired me. Awesome footage, and quirky interviews with some of the legendary architects of our day. Amazing job for the documentor and how he has put such a complex story together in such a simple style without over-simplifying the stories.

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Summary: I bought this DVD in september, 2006. But I have never received it.
Comment: I bought this DVD in september, 2006. But I have never received it.

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Summary: Would you like your father to be a genius, or rather not.
Comment: Well balanced documentary of a son who wants to find the personal traces of his long gone well-known father.
Interviews with famous architects who knew him, the women, the children and lovingly filmed: his work. In a calm pace this endearing movie will surprise and entice you.

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Summary: Wonderful Story of a Bastard Son
Comment: This is a documentary by a son of a man with 3 families. Nathaniel was the son from the youngest of the women. The father died when he was 11 and he never really knew him because the father lived with the wife he was married to. The man did visit at times and his mother always believed that he died while coming to visit them and move in forever. The man was a famous architect named Louis Kahn. He was highly revered in the architect world and it was a bit shocking that he had been hiding 3 families for many years from each other. They did not meet until the funeral. The son makes a very special film that haunts us with sadness. His interaction with his mother is the most moving. She is uncomfortable in talking with him and is bothered by his questions. A highly recommended film.

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Summary: THIS IS A TOUCHING FILM--AND MAKES YOU THINK, TOO!
Comment: This film starts off slowly but it "grows on you". It's a son's discovery of his mostly absent father who died 30 years ago when he was 11! You would think it would be a little too late to revivify one's father after 30 years. But, no, the film maker-son DOES revivify his father! And, after 30 years, what is left? The son, yes. And the architectural influence and works by his father which continue to influence the lives of people still here. It's quite a noble tribute to the father by the son. Well, done! Recommended. boland7214@aol

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Summary: A moving account of a great artist's life and impact
Comment: Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974) was one of the 20th century's most influential and well-regarded architects. He designed such important structures as the Exeter Library at Philips Exeter Academy, and the Capital Complex in Dhaka (Dacca), Bangladesh, and his work was revered by high-flying architects such as I. M. Pei, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry. But his habits of overwork and overextension, bidding for too many projects and becoming obsessive about his all-consuming passion for architecture, led him to die of a heart attack, bankrupt and alone, in a Penn Station bathroom as he was on his way home to Philadelphia from New York. When he died, he left not only a wife and their daughter, but also a mistress and his second daughter, as well as a second mistress and his third child, his 11-year-old son, Nathaniel, who made this beautiful documentary about his father, "My Architect: A Son's Journey."

Nathaniel Kahn's documentary visits and discusses the works of his father, some of which Nathaniel had never seen before, and shows the emotional and artistic impact that Louis Kahn and his work made on others, both architects and clients. But more than being a simple homage to his father and his works, the film shows Nathaniel's search to understand his secretive, mysterious father's compartmentalized life and to strengthen his connection to the father he lost so early. Louis Kahn's charisma and charm, his love for his children and the feelings of great love and loyalty he engendered in the women in his life are all made clear, as are his self-absorption, his need to make every commitment in life secondary to his commitment to his work, his flashes of arrogance, and his lack of empathy for others. The question which underpins the whole film is whether the gifts of an artistic genius whose work engenders tears of appreciation from his clients and fellow architects can justify his remote, selfish, and disconnected life.

Nathaniel Kahn doesn't try to answer any of these questions once and for all. He asks difficult questions and presses those he interviews (from great architects to his own mother) to be honest about his father's failings and selfishness as well as his brilliance and occasional tenderness. The responses are at times surprising and always touching.

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Summary: My Architect: A Son's Journey
Comment: An engrossing and unexpectedly moving film, about a son's search for insight into the enigmatic, remote man who fathered him, using the elder Kahn's enduring professional legacy as a starting point. Ultimately a very human story, which viewers should find edifying and uplifting, regardless of their interest in architecture.

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Summary: MY ARCHITECT: My Review
Comment: The video is a very well done documentation of a son's journey to get to know his father (Luis Kahn/famous architect). This is not a documentation on solely the work of Luis Kahn but on his personal life as well. I really enjoyed the personal discoveries the son made of his father through the interviews and visits (to the buildings). It was a good balance of showing off the two sides of Luis Kahn as an Architect and as an absent father.

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My Architect: A Son's Journey