NEW YORK.- The film My Architect - A Son’s Journey, Directed by Nathaniel Kahn will open November 12, 2003 at the Film Forum in New York and expand immediately to: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Raleigh/Durham, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C. and nationwide thereafter .
My Architect is a tale of love and art, betrayal and forgiveness -- in which the illegitimate son of a legendary artist undertakes a five year, worldwide exploration to understand his long-dead father. Louis I. Kahn, who died in 1974, is considered by many architectural historians to have been the most important architect of the second half of the twentieth century. A Jewish immigrant who overcame poverty and the effects of a devastating childhood accident, Kahn created a handful of intensely powerful and spiritual buildings -- geometric compositions of brick, concrete and light -- which, in the words of one critic, “change your life.”
While Kahn’s artistic legacy was an uncompromising search for truth and clarity, his personal life was filled with secrets and chaos: He died, bankrupt and unidentified, in the men’s room in Penn Station, New York, leaving behind three families -- one with his wife of many years and two with women with whom he’d had long-term affairs. In My Architect, the child of one of these extra-marital relationships, Kahn’s only son Nathaniel, sets out on an epic journey to reconcile the life and work of this mysterious, contradictory man. The riveting narrative leads us from the subterranean corridors of Penn Station to the roiling streets of Bangladesh (where Kahn built the astonishing Capital), and from the coast of New England to the inner sanctums of Jerusalem politics. Along the way, we encounter a series of characters that are by turns fascinating, hilarious, adoring and critical: from the cabbies who drove Kahn around his native Philadelphia, to former lovers and clients, to the rarified heights of the world’s most celebrated architects -- Frank Gehry, I.M. Pei and Philip Johnson among them.
In My Architect, the filmmaker reveals the haunting beauty of his father’s monumental creations and takes us deep within his own divided family, uncovering a world of prejudice, intrigue and the myths that haunt parents and children. In a documentary with the emotional impact of a dramatic feature film (including an original orchestral score), Nathaniel’s personal journey becomes a universal investigation of identity, a celebration of art and ultimately, of life itself.
My Architect Louis I. Kahn: Biography - Louis I. Kahn shares with Frank Lloyd Wright, LeCorbusier, and Mies van der Rohe, a central position in 20th century architecture. Born in 1901 on the Estonian island of Osel, Kahn immigrated with his family to Philadelphia at the age of four, where he lived in profound poverty. Talented in art and music, the young Kahn made money teaching drawing and playing piano in silent movie houses. He won a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied under the great Paul Cret in the Beaux Arts tradition, graduating with a degree in architecture in 1924. He married Esther Israeli in 1930 and their daughter, Sue Ann, was born ten years later. Throughout the 1930’s and 40’s Kahn struggled to define himself artistically and to obtain commissions -- a task he found difficult, due both to the great depression and to his outsider position as a Jew working in a protestant gentleman’s profession. In 1947, he accepted an appointment as professor of architecture at Yale University, beginning a career as a teacher -- first at Yale, later at the University of Pennsylvania -- which lasted the rest of his life and was to profoundly influence a generation of architects. It was during this time of professional frustration that Kahn began an extramarital relationship with the brilliant young designer Anne Tyng (who bore him a second daughter, Alexandra, in 1954) and that he experienced a fundamental creative breakthrough. On a trip through Greece, Rome and Egypt, Kahn realized that what was lacking in the steel and glass aesthetic of high modernism was the monumentality and mystery found in ancient ruins.
Kahn was now over 50, and with little over 20 years left to live, he embarked on a feverish series of commissions starting with the Yale Art Gallery (1951-53) and the Trenton Bathhouse (1954-59) that were to forever change the course of architecture. Developing his approach in works like the Richards Medical Towers (1957-62), The First Unitarian Church (1959-69) and his first true masterpiece, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (1959-67), Kahn fused an ancient sense of humanism with modern building techniques. He preferred simple materials -- brick and concrete -- but he worked them with astonishing facility, creating spaces that are both highly functional and spiritually uplifting. For Kahn, architecture became the search for truth and buildings were living things. He was fond of saying, “I asked the brick, ’What do you like brick?’ And brick said, ’I like an arch.’”.
Kahn was also obsessed with natural light; his use of it is unmatched by any other modern architect. In his late buildings, like the Exeter Library (1967-72), The Yale Center for British Art (1969-74) and the transcendent Kimbell Art Museum (1967-72) -- considered by many to be the greatest museum built in the last century -- light is the controlling principle of design and the character of the spaces change dramatically depending on the time of day, the weather and the season. The last decade of Kahn’s life was also marked by an increasing focus on landscape and the site, interests he shared with landscape architect Harriet Pattison, who worked in his office and with whom he had a son, Nathaniel, born in 1962.
Ever the idealist, Kahn found it difficult to work within the strict guidelines imposed by clients, deadlines and budgets and he often saw cherished commissions awarded to lesser architects. Thwarted in his dreams to remake his native city of Philadelphia, Kahn poured his energies and his already strained resources into his two largest projects -- The Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, India (1962-1974) and the monumental Capital Complex at Dhaka Bangladesh, begun in 1962 and completed after his death. It was here on the sub-continent that Kahn’s dream of creating a city of the future was realized.
Significantly, the Muslim leaders of Bangladesh consider Kahn (a Jewish-American) to be not only the architect of their government center, but also an architect of their fledgling democracy. It was on his return from India that Louis I. Kahn suffered a fatal heart attack in the men’s room in Pennsylvania Station, New York on the night of March 17, 1974. He was at the height of his creative powers; many of his projects, including a synagogue for Jerusalem and projects in Europe and the United States remained unfinished.
My Architect - About the Filmmakers - Nathaniel Kahn (Director/Producer) - Nathaniel Kahn grew up in Philadelphia and attended Yale University on a scholarship, where he was awarded the Gordon Prize for his work as a theater director. In 1989, Kahn wrote and directed a play, "Owl’s Breath," which was presented off-Broadway. In 1992, he co-wrote THE ROOM, a short dramatic film about a boy whose room falls out of a building. THE ROOM screened at the Sundance Film Festival and won an award at the Cannes Film Festival. An avid environmentalist, Kahn also spent several years collaborating with Miranda Productions on a number of environmentally themed documentaries including, MY FATHER’S GARDEN, which was featured at the Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast by the Sundance Channel, and WILDERNESS: THE LAST STAND, which was broadcast by PBS and was nominated for a regional Emmy Award. After several years of fund-raising, he was able to embark on the making of My Architect, his first feature-length film.
Susan Rose Behr (Producer, Executive Producer) - Susan Rose Behr began her career in theater. A native of Philadelphia, she cofounded a summer theater in Haverford, Pennsylvania to produce new works. She has produced industrial films and also served as a researcher on numerous projects, with a particular expertise in historical locations, documents and information. Behr is currently working to bring My Architect to India and Bangladesh, where the work of Louis Kahn has had such a profound impact. My Architect is her first feature-length film.
Bob Richman (Director of Photography) - Bob Richman began his career at Maysles Films and is a highly regarded verité style cinematographer. Recent credits include the feature-length documentaries GOOD ROCKIN’ TONIGHT, THE LEGACY OF SUN RECORDS for the PBS series "American Masters," TICKLE IN THE HEART, an intimate look at the legendary Epstein Brothers klezmer band; and the Emmy nominated PARADISE LOST: THE CHILDHOOD MURDERS AT ROBIN HOOD HILLS, which premiered at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival and aired on HBO as a prime-time special. Bob’s credits also include productions for PBS’ "P.O.V." and "Frontline" series, and the ABC prime-time series "Turning Point." .
Sabine Krayenbühl (Editor) - A native of Switzerland, Sabine Krayenbühl has worked in both the United States and Europe, editing documentaries and features. Her recent work includes the feature HEARTBREAK HOSPITAL, starring Patricia Clarkson and John Shea; "An American Love Story," a 10 part series for "P.O.V.," directed by Jennifer Fox, and broadcast by PBS, Arte and BBC; JUGODIVAS, an exploration of art, music, identity and the war in Yugoslavia, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival; and FRAU2 AND HAPPY END, a feature produced by Studio Canal-Plus and BMG International, which enjoyed a successful theatrical run in Europe. Krayenbühl is a distinguished graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Joseph Vitarelli (Composer) - Joseph Vitarelli is a highly regarded film composer. His film credits include the critically acclaimed THE LAST SEDUCTION directed by John Dahl and starring Linda Fiorentino; SHE’S SO LOVELY, directed by Nicholas Cassavettes, starring Sean Penn, John Travolta and Robin Wright Penn; COMMANDMENTS starring Aidan Quinn and Anthony LaPaglia and directed by Daniel Taplitz. Vitarelli also scored the film adaptation of Jon Robin Baitz’s play THE SUBSTANCE OF FIRE directed by Daniel Sullivan and starring Ron Rifkin, Sarah Jessica Parker and Timothy Hutton. In addition to his feature film work, Vitarelli has scored numerous films for HBO including BOYCOTT, FIRST-TIME FELON and PENTAGON WARS. In 2001, he produced the Emmy Award winning score with Arturo Sandoval for "For Love Or Country," starring Andy Garcia and directed by Joseph Sargent. He has composed music for many television series and specials including "Equal Justice," "The Beast" and "Under Suspicion" as well as the adaptation of Neil Simon’s play "Laughter On The 23rd Floor," directed by Richard Benjamin and starring Nathan Lane.
