Directed by Nathaniel Khan
Louis I. Khan's only son Nathaniel, born of an of an affair between Khan and Nathanial Khan's mother Harriet Pattison, attempts to retrace his father's life and reconnect with the famous architect by visiting his buildings and interviewing the people who knew him best. The resulting work is a surprisingly riveting look at the architects rocky professional life and even rockier personal life as well as an interesting survey of Khan's unique impact on American architecture.
Director Nathanial Khan starts "My Architect" with the barest of facts: His father, world famous architect Louis I. Khan, was found dead in a bathroom at Penn Station with his name crossed out on his passport. From there, he attempts to unravel the mystery surrounding Khan, moving backwards and recounting his father's life, his work, and his complex relationship with the three families he kept simultaneously in the Philadelphia area. While interviewing former friends, colleagues, and personal acquaintances of Khan's, the director also takes the time to visit most of his father's seminal works, including the Salk Institute, the Kimble Art Museum, and the massive National Assembly of Bangladesh.
Since Khan finished relatively few works, his son is able to give a fairly complete tour of his father's projects, giving the viewer a rather complete appreciation of Khan's œuvre, from the garishly the ugly, such as the a community center in Trenton, to the admittedly impressive such as the Salk Institute. Although Khan's monolithic structures are not my bag, you have to admire his efforts to make buildings that will stand the test of time.
Nathanial Khan is refreshingly honest when it comes to his opinion on his fathers buildings. After visiting the rRchards medical research laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania, he bluntly states that he "wanted to like it" but just couldn't. When visiting his father's more aesthetically pleasing projects such as the Salk Institute and the National Assembly of Bangladesh, Khan lavishes some worthwhile praise on his father's work, highlighting the building's interesting features or historical relevance.
If the director is surprisingly impartial in his assessment of his father's buildings, he is far less so in his assessment of his character. Watching Louis I. Khan's son and former mistresses fall over themselves making excuses for his bad behavior is frankly a bit annoying. Although I have no trouble believing that Khan was a great mind and an interesting man you have to question the moral fiber of a guy who juggled three families simultaneously and, according to a Philly cab driver interviewed ny Nathaniel Khan, "loved the women." The eagerness of his ex-lovers and of the his son to shrug of his indiscretions and speak of Khan's character in glowing terms goes far in explaining Khan's hypnotic charisma seeing as how many of the individuals who suffered from his indiscretions seem to have not yet woken up to the fact that he might not have been an all around solid family man. Nathanial Khan obviously wants to like the man, and I guess you can't really fault him for that. His search for a posthumus connection with his father also makes for compelling viewing and "My Architect" is for the most part a pleasant and well made documentary.
2 comments:
This reminds me of the excellent book "Intellectuals" by Paul Johnson where he gives short histories of guys like Jean Jacque Rousseau and Karl Marx and asks the question, "how do their lives stand up to scrutiny given their philosophy?" Short answer: remarkably poorly. Rousseau had 5 kids by his mistress and abandoned every one at a home for infants in Paris. Sounds like Khan comes from the same mold.
I have to read that. Paul Johnson is awesome.
As hard as I try to divorce the personal lives of authors and artists from their work, I simply can't. And I probably shouldn't, really.
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