I just saw My Architect: A Son’s Journey, a documentary by Nathaniel Kahn on his quest to learn about his father, the master architect Louis Kahn.

The movie goes back and forth between Kahn’s mysterious personal life and his public greatness. After becoming arguably the nation’s most influential architect of the 20th century, Louis Kahn died bankrupt and alone in a bathroom stall at Penn Station in 1973, his body not identified for three days. During the latter part of his life he spent his time between his three families — Nathaniel was his “illegitimate” son. The women in Kahn’s life seemed to excuse his lack of decency for his genius. Nathaniel’s mother, who met Kahn after taking a job in his office, holds no grudges. She continued to believe Lou was going to leave his wife and move in until the day he died. His other mistress interviewed in the film, Harriet, also held a reverence for Kahn that blinded any ill-feelings she might have for him.

The black turtlenecks in the audience tripped over each other to whisper the name of each famous architect being interviewed before his name and title appeared on screen, to prove their architecture-smarts. The interviews with the testaments of architecture were great, especially with Philip Johnson at his Glass House. “Corbusier was a jerk, Mies… you just couldn’t talk to him, but Kahn was just a nice guy.”