USA, 2003
Director: Nathaniel Kahn
Score: ***

The discovery of a strange man found dead at a train station with the address crossed out on his identification would trigger a reactionary interest in anyone, even more so when this person turns out to be famed American architect Louis Kahn.  The mysterious death, Kahn’s influence in the architectural field and the need to know more of his secretive personal life are some of the impetus that drives his son, director Nathaniel Kahn to render this well-conceived 2003 Oscar nominated best documentary feature.  My Architect, made 30 years after Louis’s death is his son’s personal journey of discovery.

There is much material for director Nathaniel Kahn to work with. For one, his father, Louis had three families, kept apart and unknown from each other.  His accomplishments combined art and architecture resulting in works from the Yale Art Gallery to the monumental capital complex in Bangladesh.  Documentaries generally fascinate as much as the subject is of interest.  It is here that director Kahn succeeds in gradually building up momentum culminating with Louis being praised as a God for his last work in Bangladesh – the openings of his structures compared to communication with the Deity.  Kahn takes his camera crew over the world to film his accomplishments.  Fortunately, a lot of footage were originally available from the New York Foundation For the Arts.

It is difficult to fault Kahn’s film.  He exhaustively covers his father’s life from childhood to his emigration from Estonia, to his encounters with the three women of his life to his achievement in his work, despite being broke at the time of his death.  He introduces humor in his father’s impractical ideas and sustains drama during interviews with his half-sisters and mother.  His respect for his father gets a bit overblown at times, especially during the half hour of the film, with the film sliding a bit towards sentimentality.

Louis Kahn’s work is described by an admirer as rigorous, principled and exhilarating.  Though director Kahn’s film resolves most of what he set out to do, he fails to bring all his points to a satisfying closure.  If he only did, his film might be described by those same three words.

Review by Gilbert Seah