My Architect
- 2003
- 1h 56m
IMDb RATING
7.4/10
3.3K
YOUR RATING
Director Nathaniel Kahn searches to understand his father, noted architect Louis Kahn, who died bankrupt and alone in 1974.Director Nathaniel Kahn searches to understand his father, noted architect Louis Kahn, who died bankrupt and alone in 1974.Director Nathaniel Kahn searches to understand his father, noted architect Louis Kahn, who died bankrupt and alone in 1974.
- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 7 wins & 6 nominations total
Balkrishna Doshi
- Self
- (as B.V. Doshi)
Frank Gehry
- Self
- (as Frank O. Gehry)
Louis Kahn
- Self
- (archive footage)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- Quotes
Louis Kahn: How accidental our existences are, really, and how full of influence by circumstance.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The 2004 IFP/West Independent Spirit Awards (2004)
Featured review
Spaceless
Films are a unique way of imagining, somewhere between the unreal and what we call real. It really is quite a unique thing, more than a mere medium. I have always thought of film as the outer spheres of private literature grown into public architecture.
So it pains me when we have a bad film about architecture, or rather a film which features architecture but which has no real architecture in it. I've lamented before about films which supposedly feature math or music or religion or great philosophical ideas, and end up focusing on people, usually tortured people. The mathematics or whatever is acknowledged but not revealed and the tortured souls involved might as well be sportsmen.
That's a loss. But this is a greater loss, because with some skill film CAN convey architecture, in fact the special eye of the moving camera can reveal things about space that are unavailable to a single human in that space. The next frontier in architecture IS cinematic architecture, expanded form.
Kahn was indeed the man who invented postmodern architecture. Perhaps no person working in space understood space as well as he. This is quite apart from the ability to shape and manipulate space, something he did with only ordinary skill. So in his case it is not even enough to introduce us to buildings, but we have to go into the buildings in dimensions other than the space they enclose.
There are dozens of people alive who could have spoken to the matter, to have enlightened us. What we get is search by an undernourished child, some pictures of clouds as they pass over Kahn buildings, some spewing of irrelevant platitudes by lesser architects and finally a teary testament of inspiration from a thankful Bangli.
There's no architecture here.
Kahn's notions had nothing to do with "recreating ruins" and everything with revealing order, order in utility, in forms (usually classical forms), and order in light. How wonderful would it have been for the son to discover this and convey it to us. Who gives a bleep about how he relates to his half-sisters?
Whether you know it of not, Kahn changed the way you imagine. But there's a fascinating story that was missed here. Unmarried mother number one was Anne Tyng who was more than a mere draftswoman. for several decades she was the center of distributed collaboration in revealing the post-modern form of the new brick. As a young architect, I communicated with her on this and feel sure that she was a key influence in his late education.
I have since spent quality time with the fellow who actually did much of the design work while Kahn was jetting around speaking and am convinced that the insights were both more collaborative and profound than reflected here.
This is as far from actual architecture, actual notions of where we fit, than Mel Gibson's iconography has to do with Jesus.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
So it pains me when we have a bad film about architecture, or rather a film which features architecture but which has no real architecture in it. I've lamented before about films which supposedly feature math or music or religion or great philosophical ideas, and end up focusing on people, usually tortured people. The mathematics or whatever is acknowledged but not revealed and the tortured souls involved might as well be sportsmen.
That's a loss. But this is a greater loss, because with some skill film CAN convey architecture, in fact the special eye of the moving camera can reveal things about space that are unavailable to a single human in that space. The next frontier in architecture IS cinematic architecture, expanded form.
Kahn was indeed the man who invented postmodern architecture. Perhaps no person working in space understood space as well as he. This is quite apart from the ability to shape and manipulate space, something he did with only ordinary skill. So in his case it is not even enough to introduce us to buildings, but we have to go into the buildings in dimensions other than the space they enclose.
There are dozens of people alive who could have spoken to the matter, to have enlightened us. What we get is search by an undernourished child, some pictures of clouds as they pass over Kahn buildings, some spewing of irrelevant platitudes by lesser architects and finally a teary testament of inspiration from a thankful Bangli.
There's no architecture here.
Kahn's notions had nothing to do with "recreating ruins" and everything with revealing order, order in utility, in forms (usually classical forms), and order in light. How wonderful would it have been for the son to discover this and convey it to us. Who gives a bleep about how he relates to his half-sisters?
Whether you know it of not, Kahn changed the way you imagine. But there's a fascinating story that was missed here. Unmarried mother number one was Anne Tyng who was more than a mere draftswoman. for several decades she was the center of distributed collaboration in revealing the post-modern form of the new brick. As a young architect, I communicated with her on this and feel sure that she was a key influence in his late education.
I have since spent quality time with the fellow who actually did much of the design work while Kahn was jetting around speaking and am convinced that the insights were both more collaborative and profound than reflected here.
This is as far from actual architecture, actual notions of where we fit, than Mel Gibson's iconography has to do with Jesus.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
helpful•67
- tedg
- Jun 2, 2005
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official site
- Language
- Also known as
- Mimar babam - Bir oğlun yolculuğu
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $2,762,863
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $37,929
- Nov 16, 2003
- Gross worldwide
- $2,932,237
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