Louis Kahn was the creative mind behind some of the most important buildings of the twentieth century, including the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA; The Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth, TX;

The Capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka. Louis I. Kahn, Architect.

and the National Assembly Building of Bangladesh, in Dhaka. Monumental and full of mystery, his buildings are intensely powerful and spiritual, using natural light as the controlling principle of the design, and the character of the building changes throughout the day depending on the time, weather and season.

Kahn preferred simple materials – brick and concrete – but worked with them with astonishingly facility, creating spaces that are both highly functional and spiritually uplifting. For Kahn, the architecture became the search for truth and the buildings were living things. The Bangladesh project is a wonderful story in and of itself – a Jewish architect is brought to a Muslim country, building a 20,000-square-foot mosque for the National Assembly.

Nathaniel and Louis Kahn, circa 1970. Photo by Harriet Pattison.

In the last decade of his life, before a fatal heart attack suffered in the men’s room of Penn Station in 1974, Kahn focused increasingly on the landscape of the sites, sharing this interest with Harriet Pattison, who worked in his office, with whom he had an extramarital affair, and who bore him a son, Nathanial, born in 1962. Nathaniel was eleven years old when his father passed away.

Thirty years later, Nathaniel has written and produced a film about his five-year journey to understand his long-dead father. In My Architect, Kahn takes us from Penn Station to Bangladesh, Jerusalem and throughout the United States to learn about his work, his lovers, and his family. In this emotional documentary, Nathaniel’s personal journey becomes a universal investigation of identity, and a celebration of art.

Nathaniel was raised in Philadelphia, and attended Yale University where he was awarded the Gordon Prize for his work as a theater director. His previous work includes The Room which was screened at the Sundance Film Festival and won an award at the Cannes Film Festival.

My Architect is his first feature length film. It has already won several awards including the Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival, and the Audience Award at the Philadelphia Film Festival. It is currently screening at select locations around the country. Please visit http://www.myarchitectfilm.com/ for more information.