Sin #33: The Architect's Son

Architecture is the reaching out for the truth

Louis Kahn

Khan was one of the great architects. He understood what it meant to give a building momentum and using volumes to create spaces that felt rich, imaginative and even spiritual. His professional life was full of triumphs that included the Salk Institute and the Kimbell Art Museum. His personal life, however, was full of mystery and guilt. At the end of his life he was found lying down on a subway station dead of a heart attack, unable to be located for days since he crossed out his address in his ID. But why would he do that? It appears that the answer isn’t simple. Kahn was married but had 2 daughters and a son from different women and lived a life completely focused on his work, leaving the people who loved him emotionally stranded.

In “My Architect”, Khan’s son goes on a journey to try to understand his father; not only his legacy as an artist but a little of his motivations as a human being. The movie is not a lecture on the technicalities of his buildings since it focuses more on the emotional travelogue, working more as a terrific and significant drama. At the end we contemplate the only thing that Khan left, his body of work and wonder if he had any regrets.

As an architect Frank Gehry is completely different from Louis Kahn. His work is audacious and organic using bold structures that forge a strange and ethereal mood on the viewer. Look at his most famous building, the Guggenheim museum on Bilbao; it completely drains the attention of the city to itself and remains like an alien craft hovering over a city of more conservative traditions. His buildings have the quality of dividing the opinion of the public; some think they merely stand as magnificent follies while others relish its unusual esthetic. In Sydney Pollack’s documentary “Sketches of Frank Gehry” we meet the man and the impact of his work; it is not a profound work that delves too much on psychology (like “My Architect”) but is invaluable as an amazing portfolio of interesting architectural works.

Both these documentaries offer insight into the lives of creative artists. While the Frank Gehry documentary is interesting, it doesn’t achieve the power of “My Architect” where the quest of the filmmaker was higher than delivering mere entertainment, it was a personal odyssey into his own family making the viewer conspirator in the search for Louis.