My Architect: A Son's Journey produced
and directed by Nathaniel Kahn, 2003, U.S., color, English, 1 hour 46 minutes
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO, Calif—My Architect, A Son's Journey is not a new film; it
had already been well acclaimed before I encountered it for the first time
yesterday during a "retreat," which was more like a seminar, of the
City of San Diego's Historical Resources Board, on which I am privileged to be
an appointee.
During the lunch break of the 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. meeting in the board room
of the Natural History Museum in Balboa Park, one of the board's staff
consultants., Michael Tudury, put the video up on screen, in order to provide us
with some background on the late architect Louis I. Kahn. Later, I
borrowed the video so I could watch it again in the quiet of my
home.
Kahn's design for the Salk Institute in the La Jolla section of San Diego is
well recognized as a fine example of "brutalism"—which may sound
like an insult, but actually is a compliment. In the field of
architecture, "brutalism" refers to a style emphasizing massiveness,
heaviness, as if, like the pyramids of Egypt or the coliseum of Rome, its
structures are built to last an eternity. The Salk Institute with its two
rows of mammoth buildings facing each other over a courtyard that is
distinguished by a narrow waterway seemingly running right to the point
where the horizon meets the Pacific Ocean, not only is an awe-inspiring campus,
it is, in the opinion of the scientists who work there, an extremely practical
one.
Kahn worked out a way to run all the conduits between floors in such a manner
that they would always be accessible to the institute's numerous biological
research laboratories, permitting each scientist great flexibility in how to
configure his or her research area. At the same time, even though
the buildings are at right angles to the Pacific Ocean, Kahn managed to provide
each suite with an extension providing a view of the magnificent
horizon—corroborating the belief of the institute's founder, polio vaccine
discover Jonas
Salk, that art can profoundly influence science and vice versa.
When a son calls someone "my architect," rather than "my
father," you realize right from the opening title that Kahn's was not the
average American family with a house in the suburbs, two cars in the garage, and
two adoring children whom mom took to school and to soccer games. In fact,
Kahn had three children, each of whom had their own mom, and Kahn had only
married one of them.
That was Esther Israeli Kahn, mother of Sue Ann Kahn. With Ann Tyne, an
architect who worked for him, Kahn had a daughter, Alex. And with Harriet
Pattison, a landscape architect, Kahn had Nathaniel, the youngest and, one
assumes, last of his children. When Kahn was found dead in New York City's Penn
Station in 1974, Nathaniel was just a boy of 11, who knew his father only as the
mysterious man who would visit his mother clandestinely, and sometimes read and
draw with him. Nathaniel didn't start his "journey" in search of
his father until a quarter century later.
The documentary is riveting because it is so personal. In addition to the
Salk Institute, Nathaniel visited some of his father's architectural creations
including the Richards Medical Research Building in Philadelphia, the city where
Estonian-born Kahn grew up and was schooled; the Bath House in Trenton,
the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, the Library at Exeter College, a ship that
converts into a concert stage when it pulls up to a port; and the work which
still was in progress when Kahn died, the capital complex of
Bangladesh.
Along the way, Nathaniel interviewed on film some of the architects and builders
who collaborated or competed with Kahn on projects, and who were influenced or
impressed by his works. These included Philip Johnson, I.M. Pei, Jack
McAllister, Edmund Bacon, Saul Worman, Frank Gehry, Robert A.M. Stern, Moshe
Safdie, B.V. Doshi, and Shamsul Wares.
But at the same time as the son attempted to understand the kind of architect
his father was; he also grappled with what kind of man he was. To address that
question, he had to talk to members of his father's families. Esther was
already dead; but he spoke with his own mother, and with Ann Tyne as well as
with his two half-sisters, Sue-Ann and Alex. They had been aware of
each other's existence as children, but strict separation had been maintained
among them. Gathered in as touching a scene as you'll ever see, Nathaniel
asks at one point: "Are we a family?" Sue Ann, the
only legitimate heir of Louis, responded kindly, "We are if we want
to," adding that this question depends upon what is in their hearts, not
upon the "fluke" of their common paternity.
As the movie progresses, Nathaniel questions two of the three principal women in
Kahn's life, but none so searchingly as his Episcopalian mother whose
relationship with Kahn shocked her family and whose decision to give birth to
Nathaniel, rather than abort him, was one of the reasons for her permanent
estrangement from one of her brothers.
When Kahn was found dead in the train station, apparently of natural causes, the
address he shared with Esther on his passport had been crossed out.
Harriet believed that was because Kahn finally was planning to move in with her
and Nathaniel permanently. She repeated this belief frequently to her
child. As a result of all the interviews that Nathaniel had done, viewers are
led to the conclusion that Kahn's only real marriage was to his
work. So we understand the reason for the question when Nathaniel asks his
mother whether her dearly-held belief "was a myth?" She,
on the other hand, was shocked that he could question this romantic verity.
There are a few sections of the movie dealing directly with the Jewish
experience. One of Nathaniel's early interviews is with a rabbi who was a first
cousin of Kahn's and who was unaware that Kahn had a son until Nathaniel's quest
for knowledge about his father started receiving publicity. When Nathaniel shows
him his birth certificate, the rabbi jokes maybe he should also ask to see the
"brit" certificate for his circumcision.
Later, in discussing why, despite his fame, Kahn did not receive any of the
commissions when Philadelphia undertook the massive redevelopment of its central
core, Worman suggested that "blood was important in Philadelphia; I think
maybe Lou's blood had a yellow arm band..."
There were other unrealized commissions as well—most notably in Jerusalem
where Kahn had drawn up plans for two separate synagogue projects, one of which
would have been so massive, it might have dwarfed Jerusalem's signature golden
Dome of the Rock mosque. To understand the politics of the situation,
Nathaniel interviewed former Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, still charming and
chomping a cigar in his 90s.
Israeli architect Moshe Safdie—whose own works can be seen on the UCSD campus
very close to the Salk Institute—suggested that because he was Jewish by birth
Kahn would have liked to have done some Jewish architecture. However,
Safdie speculated that spiritually Kahn was at home with any religion, that his
work showed tremendous spirituality, and in temperament as well as life style,
Kahn was a true nomad.
Nathaniel engages throughout the film in some schtick, the love of
which one assumes, especially after meeting his mother's straight-laced sisters,
Nathaniel inherited from his paternal line. Nathaniel skates in the courtyard of
the Salk Institute, and broad jumps along the course of its famous
waterway. He runs holding his ears from the blast of the horn on the concert
ship. He keeps re-fetching the yarmulke that blows off his
head at the Western Wall. He retains in the documentary a sequence
in which a Haredi reproaches him with a glance for filming him while davening
at the Wall. My favorite bit, however, came in Bangladesh, when Kahn asks
some people who had worked on the Capitol construction project if they knew the
name of the architect. Yes, said one proudly, Louis Farrakhan.
Not Farakhan, but Louis I. Kahn —and come to
think of it, that's what his father was, an icon.
On occasions, Kahn would lecture to a class about the innate qualities of
certain building materials—qualities that he believed should be honored, not
short-changed. Kahn's personal building materials had their flaws—when he was
3 years his face was burned in a kitchen fire, prompting classmates to taunt him
as "scar face." Those scars may have been what turned Kahn
inward, reflective, and ultimately into a great architect.
As a boy, Nathaniel would have his father tell him over and over again about the
kitchen fire that had disfigured him. Louis' own father thought the boy
would never recover, that he would be "better off dead." But
Louis' mother said, to the contrary, the fire would make him great.
Growing up as the illegitimate son of a world renown architect was Nathaniel's
own fire, and, with this documentary, he too, has shown the world he has the
stuff of greatness.
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