My Architect 2003

“Anyone who’s ever stood in front of a building designed by the legendary Louis Kahn can attest to the formal severity, solemnity, and inscrutability of the work. This exemplary modernism, as explicated in the surprisingly moving documentary My Architect, borrows cues from the silent face of ancient ruins. As it turns out, Kahn possessed a few secrets of his own. In 1974, when he collapsed of a heart attack in Penn Station at age 73, his body, for reasons that remain unclear to this day, went unidentified for days. It probably had something to do with his de facto position as father to three separate families. Nathaniel Kahn, the film’s director (and son from the third relationship), attempts to unravel the convoluted mystery… If Kahn the elder was a complete unknown, his story of discretely maintained lives would be fascinating. The fact that he’s one of America’s foremost architects – and a man survived by monumental structures around the globe – turns the conundrum into borderline myth.” — Chris Chang, Film Comment