Last Wednesday night Dave and I went to Rollins College to see the movie, "My Architect," a documentary on the great architect, Louis Kahn, made in 2003 by his son, Nathaniel Kahn.
When a man sitting in front of us asked it we'd seen it before I said, "Oh, yes. It's like "The Wizard of Oz" for architects. They have to see it once a year." But, in truth, Dave's seen it only two other times.
Louie Kahn's buildings are amazing and they're all over the world. This photo is of the Salk Institute. But that's not what fascinates me about the movie and the man.
Louie Kahn had a heart attack and died penniless in the bathroom of Penn Station. He left three families. His wife and daughter, a mistress and a daughter and another mistress and a son. The son, who was never publicly acknowledged, made the documentary. It's pretty evident that he made life difficult for his various families and those who worked with him.
In the movie we visit all of Louie Kahn's buildings. The last, and some say the finest, is in Bangladesh, the poorest country in the world. It was on the way home from Bangladesh that he collapsed and died.
To say that Louie Kahn didn't care about money would be quite an understatement. He lost money on almost every one of his buildings. Toward the end of the film, Evan Shieh, the local architect on the Bangladesh project said two things about him that reminded me of Ken.
He had such passion that he could not say no to anything.
He loved everybody and to love everybody is to not always see the ones closest to you.
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