Architect: A Son\'s Journey Could Easily Be

¶ … Architect: A Son's Journey could easily be viewed as a solipsistic documentary. The filmmaker deliberately titles the film as My Architect, with a subtitle A Son's Journey as a way of signaling the viewer that this is Nathaniel Kahn's vision of his father. Nathaniel's purpose for making the film is expressly stated as being the discovery of his father's identity, especially following the mystery of his death. Yet through the process of traveling to view and experience Louis Kahn's work, Nathaniel discovers that his father left a legacy that transcends that of a mundane householder. Nathaniel does not hide the true purpose of his film; he does want to find some kind of closure that he might not be able to achieve in any other way than a worldly exploration of his father's architectural projects. Although Nathaniel Kahn seems at times to be melodramatic in the way he invokes his father, and certainly does not attempt to hide his bitterness, the filmmaker does a stellar job in capturing his father's soul. Nathaniel laments the lost time he had with father while creating a true tribute, a genuine celebration of the work of Louis Isadore Kahn.

What initially sparked Nathaniel's desire to make My Architect: A Son's Journey was not an inherent admiration for his father's work, although the filmmaker obviously did live in his father's shadow. The filmmaker admits early in the documentary that it was reading the obituary without his name that inspired him to explore with honesty and depth his father's life. The theme of illegitimacy, especially with regards to the father-son relationship, permeates the movie. Nathaniel has mixed feelings about his father. He admires him and has fond memories of the time the two did spend together: on those "few days" that they actually spent the whole day together. Yet even as a documentarian, Nathaniel Kahn cannot hide his resentment. His father neglected him, and neglected his mother.

Nathaniel reveals early memories of his father, who would call up his mother suddenly and out of the blue to announce an impending visit. The visit would be short-lived, even if harmonious. Architect Louis had a legitimate family and one other illegitimate one as well. The architect was, as Philip Johnson put it, a real artist. His personal life might have been in shambles but that was just testimony to the man's intensity and creative genius. The fact that Louis died under mysterious circumstances, with a passport that had his address scratched out, proves that the architect was more an artist than an engineer.