My Architect (2003)

Academy Awards, USA 2004

Nominated Oscar

Best Documentary, Features Nathaniel Kahn Susan Rose Behr

New Yorker Films
Directed by Nathaniel Kahn
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, New Yorker)

The son of noted American architect Louis Kahn tries to understand his father nearly 20 years after his death by visiting his buildings and interviewing people who knew him. His travels take him across the country, from Philadelphia, where he grew up and was virtually ignored, to California, where the Salk Institute embraced his breathtaking designs. It's not all about architecture, though, this is a very personal journey in which the director seeks to understand his past. There are a handful of truly moving encounters, such as the director of the "music boat" who remembered seeing him at his father's funeral and an architect in Bangladesh moved to tears by his father's sacrifices to get the capitol built, and some not so interesting interviews, such as a belligerent Philadelphian who disagreed with his father's philosophy and a witness to his father's death who really did not have much to say. In the end, it's not a particularly flattering portrait of his personal life, a married man with numerous women, and children, on the side, but as the wise man in Bangladesh notes, men of great vision sometimes don't see what is closest to them.