My Architect: A Son's Journey

My architect - Bande annonce Vost FR
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“When I went to high school, I had a teacher in the arts, who was head of the department of Central High, William Grey, and he gave me a course in Architecture, the only course in the high school I am sure, in Greek, Roman, Renaissance, Egyptian, and Gothic Architecture, and at that point two of my colleagues and I realized that only Architecture was to be my life, and how accidental our existences really are, and how influenced by circumstance.”
Louis I. Kahn

I did not know much about Louis Kahn before I had seen this documentary; and I must admit that I still have kind of a vague idea after that. It is quite comprehensible, for the documentary is fundamentally Kahn's illegitimate son Nathaniel Kahn's personal search for the realities of his father who had remained quite unknown and mysterious to him since the architect's death in 1974, when Nathaniel was 12. And yet, I do not think that this search had helped Nathaniel much either - at least within the extent of this documentary - to redefine his father, as a father, rather than an architect.

Louis I. Kahn (1902 - 1974) was a world-renowned architect. His works are not many in number, however, that does not prevent him from being identified as "a philosopher among architects", for I. M. Pei explains that it is not quantity that counts, but quality. His buildings are often monumental, with heavy weights, showing the exact characteristics of the materials he used. I believe that the most impressive feature of Kahn's style are the clearly seen influence by ancient ruins and the lighting inside. The huge mass of his buildings, when compared to human scale, appears to look cold for many people, nonetheless, I believe that one has to be inside them to perceive the impact he was trying to create. The world recognizes the man with his works and his passion for architecture, hence, Nathaniel is rightfully following the same path to get closer to his father, going through Kahn's works and interviewing his colleagues and contemporaries.

The story of the documentary is a very intimate one indeed, for the searching son's existence is unknown to many people that he interviewed and is quite a shock to learn about, after almost 30 years passed after Kahn's death. The interviews, especially those with colleagues, often start with a talk about how a grand architect Louis Kahn had been, following the revelation of the intimate fact by Nathaniel. It is as if the son had been desperately trying to create memories which could have been lived years ago had Kahn took him to work or to all the journeys to India or Bangladesh, showing him the wonders of architecture, hence shared his life. However, when Louis Kahn is examined in details, it is clearly seen that, illegitimate or not, those memories may never have been created, for the man was a big piece of solitude in nature.

The idea of the documentary may be intriguing, but the result is not so significant. It ends with an indication by Nathaniel that he may finally let his father go, however, it is not convincing. Furthermore, i do believe that one would be filled with even more questions after all that. The whole 135 minutes is like the first stage for Nathaniel, the introduction part, for now he has revealed the fact that preyed on his mind for years, the truth about the bastard, in his own words, but now there is even more to be done and to search for. It almost feels like, despite the few actual memories he had with Lou, and despite the surname, he always had the sense of Lou as a ghost, rather than a father. And yet, I think, Louis Kahn still continues to be the world-renowned architect for his son, and it is possible that Nathaniel Kahn will never completely recover the ancient ruins of a long-lost father.