Awe-inspiring, must see films for artists and architects:

Digested a big chunk of brain food over the weekend -

My Architect: A Son's Journey: made by Nathaniel Kahn, the illegitimate and only son of the great Louis I. Kahn. In an attempt to better understand who his father was 25 years after his death, the filmmaker trekked across the States and the world to see his father's now-textbook-famous projects and to seek his father's spirit. Poignant and humanist, the visuals of the visionary building themselves speak volumes about Kahn's artistry. Yet Kahn was much, much less successful at handling his private life. The man had numerous affairs, and three families at the same time. Does being a creative genius give anyone a license to act irresponsibly in their personal lives?

Radiosity renderings of the Hurva Synagogue
I literally jumped in my seat twice during the film. At the beginning, Nathaniel Kahn decided to start his investigation "at the top ", asking "the Man with the Glasses." He went to Philip Johnson, meeting him at his Conneticut Glass House, a place where I myself met the legendary man. The second time was when they showed CGI footage of the unbuilt Hurva synagogue at Jerusalem. The footage was taken from Unbuilt Ruins, a project on which my former supervisor Flavia collaborated. Suddenly I felt like I am, in some mysterious way, linked to the Greats of modern architecture.


The Legend of Leigh Bowery:

Was shocked that I hadn't heard of his name before seeing this movie. Outrageous, grotesque, camp, irreverent, fabulous and imaginative all at once to say the least, Leigh Bowery should have been a man enshrined in the temple of pop icons, waaay above Boy George, the epitome of 80's New Romanticism / androgyny, who's perhaps only 1/20 as interesting when compared to Leigh.

Fashion designer + musician + dancer + club owner + performance artist, simultaneously man and woman, Leigh was a larger than life figure who lived as if his every moment was a performance. The intensity of his sheer existence was overwhelming. Always better to live a short and glorious full life than a long and monotonous one.