My Architect: A Son's Journey

[cron]

it's a documentary about the son of estonian/american architect louis kahn, famous for :

the salk institute in la jolla, california.

the parliament in bangladesh

the philip exeter library in new hampshire.

the salk institute is, no kidding, one of the most poetic buildings produced in the last century.
i daresay lou kahn was probably the last influential architect our cheap and gaudy planet has seen. he was totally commited to the timelessness of architecture, and the inspirational use of geometry, silence and light. the stuff you only understand by going to the east.

I had seen the first part of this film a while ago, but hadn't seen it completely. i loved it. it's a sweet, powerful movie. nathaniel kahn's not afraid to show himself as a real, clumsy human being, and i think that's where a lot of strenght from the movie comes from. he manages to make the film a love letter for his father's work, his father , his idea of family and himself in a modest and unselfish way. it's also turbo emotional, a proud reminder to artists about the importance of humanity in all their disciplines of work. i can't recommend it enough.

[cron]

damn. i killed this entire forum. 

[Pubrick]

one thing before i rent this movie later in the week:

how many times do they say the word "space"?

i saw a documentary on richard serra, the sculptor, and they said SPACE so many times it put me to sleep. these ppl sitting in the same aisle as me caught me nodding off and had a LAUGH about it! fucking pretentious idiots. if i hadn't payed a million dollars to see it i woulda walked out and farted in their faces. or should i say SPACES.

the point is, there are few words i can't stand which keep me out of many fields that might otherwise interest me.. i can't stand anything about finance and economics cos of the words they necessarily use all the time.. the words themselves carry no meaning, and i find it impossible to sustain interest in them. space is one of them, in the field of architecture, design, that kind of stuff. business talk also bores me to death. you must know what i'm talking about.

if ppl in this doco say great things like you did in your review, without using the word space when a comment like "poetic building" would mean so much more, i will watch it. otherwise, well, now you know somethin more about me.

[cron]

one thing before i rent this movie later in the week:

how many times do they say the word "space"?

i saw a documentary on richard serra, the sculptor, and they said SPACE so many times it put me to sleep. these ppl sitting in the same aisle as me caught me nodding off and had a LAUGH about it! fucking pretentious idiots. if i hadn't payed a million dollars to see it i woulda walked out and farted in their faces. or should i say SPACES.

the point is, there are few words i can't stand which keep me out of many fields that might otherwise interest me.. i can't stand anything about finance and economics cos of the words they necessarily use all the time.. the words themselves carry no meaning, and i find it impossible to sustain interest in them. space is one of them, in the field of architecture, design, that kind of stuff. business talk also bores me to death. you must know what i'm talking about.

if ppl in this doco say great things like you did in your review, without using the word space when a comment like "poetic building" would mean so much more, i will watch it. otherwise, well, now you know somethin more about me.

you've nailed one of the most interesting topics  in this universe,  word-rape.
i used to feel the exactly same way about the word 'texture'. it was like a measure for real pretentiousness. what the fuck is a sonic texture? then i realized you have to earn the right to use them, otherwise they're just empty, like you just pointed out. in the world of plastic arts, it's so easy to fall in empty statements. i live this.  every architectural project is a battle against word-rape. i try to be as pragmatic as i can when it comes to explaining a 'concept' or the reason behind a certain part of a building.  'space' is the first word that comes to mind.  other words and phrases:   ludic, user, redefinition of the architectural program, focal axes, bifurcation. ORGANIC. i love to use that word when it means that things start taking different shapes without you noticing it, the same way it happens in nature , not whenever i see a blob.

you already know this, but it's exactly the same shit that happens with words like 'directing'. i think word-rape is a consequence on how little importance  people give to the study of the arts, and how subjective they think it all is , when in reality it's the opposite. rythm, sequence, balance, unity, symmetry or asymmetry, all of them are basic to any form of composition.

i could go on and on.


and the reason why this documentary is so kickass is because it's made by a layman. see it ,it has nothing to do with this thing you're scared to see. there's a quote by philip johnson (first pritzker prize in the world , the equivalent to the nobel prize in architecture) at the beggining of the movie that sets tone: "Frank Lloyd Wright was too cantankerous to love, Mies Van der Rohe, well you just couldn't even talk to the man. Le Corbusier was mean, but Lou - now there was a man. All of my buildings combined don't add up to his three or four buildings... He was his own artist."

yep. i think you'll get why i said it's about the importance of humanity in art.

[picolas]

just wanted to say 'utilize' is the worst.

i'll rent this too at some point.

[JG]

to counterbalance

..cos i was thinking about this today...

i like hearing the word awesome used the way its meant to be used (see: the bible).

but thats another thread, emirite?  i'll see this movie soon crono, you've convinced me. 

[pete]

I saw this movie at the theater.  I really liked the soundtrack.

[cron]

i'm reading a part of a book called 'knowing how to see architecture' by a man called  bruno zevi , and he says this:

if we truly want to know how to see architecture, we must commit ourselves above all to a clarity of method. the reader kind of reads the books on architectural aesthetics and criticism and is frightened by the vaguety of the terminology: 'truth', 'movement', 'force', 'vitality', 'sense of limits', 'harmony', 'grace', 'scale',  'proportion', 'light and shadow', 'eurithmia', 'full and empty', symmetry, 'balance', 'rythm', 'mass', 'volume' , 'emphasis' 'character, 'contrast' 'personality' , analogy',  attributes to architecture that different authors mention without explaining what do they mean.

yeh

[hedwig]

checked this outta the library the other night. it's beautiful.

i don't know much about architecture, but i'm gonna credit this film with getting me interested. due to my own ignorance on the subject, i never imagined an edifice could bring tears to my eyes but the salk institute did just that. that's an extremely gorgeous and awe-inspiring piece of work there, and the way nathaniel kahn photographs it and interacts with it adds an extra layer of meaning to it. nathaniel kahn does some very interesting things here. he experiments with the documentary form, and the result is introspective, a bit self-critical, and truthful. it's extremely emotional because it's a clear document of the turmoil lou khan created, and left behind.

i wanna say a word about the fantastic interviews he got. i LOVED how nathaniel included the interviews that didn't really give him that much new information.. like the guy in the train station. you can kind of see the consternation on nathaniel kahn's face when the guy basically gives him ZERO information. but then he starts talking about his estranged son, and how he sympathizes with louis kahn, and a new facet of kahn's enigma is illuminated through his insights. this is a pretty unique approach to documentary filmmaking. even the most seemingly uninformative and unfulfilling interviews are included either because they contain a truth more signifncant than any factual information could be, or because they illustrate how mysterious and impenetrable lou kahn's legacy remains (citizen kane). i loved that.

i was touched by this story, by nathaniel's quest. i can appreciate a meditation on familial bonds and discord. the meaning of "family" is what this film is all about. it is quite clear, lou kahn did a lot of damage to his son, his daughters, his lovers. he was a nomad, a ramblin man at the expense of his paternal responsibilities. the film becomes most interesting, however, when it observes the connections and influences between his work and his life. one of the interviewees suggests that kahn's disfigured face and personal life are reflected in his work.. the visibility of the materials and "flaws". it was his way of translating his own experience into a tangible artform. similarly, i think this film is his son's way of coping with his own suffering. so it's a bit disjointed, it's confused. not some kind of tacky confessional, but full of honest questioning. even the limitations of the documentary form to convey the full scope of kahn's life/work are brought into question: an interviewee tells nathaniel that spending only 10 minutes on the building in bangladesh is "useless." ideally, every building would get its own documentary. i adored nathaniel's ability to reconcile his anger at his father with empathy, an understanding of the man's complexity. there's a review on the back cover comparing this film to citizen kane. thematically, it's an apt comparison.