Galinsky a Go-Go

After telling you about the movie Proteus, it got me thinking about My Architect, a documentary about another guy on a mad quest to fill the world with perfect forms, in this case legendary (and legendarily nutty) architect Louis I. Kahn. In addtion to showing some marvelous buildings and a who's who of famous architects singing his praises, the film also exlpores his bizarre family life -- or should I say family lives, as Kahn had three of them. That's right, he maintained three separate sets of wives and children at the same time. One of his sons, Nathaniel, is the writer/director of the film. In the end, though, he died alone in a Penn Station restroom, with nobody at his side. In fact, they couldn't even notify anyone of his death for a while because he had scratched out the address on his passport. Obviously he didn't feel like any one place or family was his true home, but whether this was the result of guilt, arrogance or just a desire not to play favorites, we'll never know.

In a bit of a coincidence, I was on-line recently looking up a famous architecture firm that my office will be working with for the next couple of years (Tod Williams/Billie Tsien) and came across a listing for one of their buildings on Galinsky.com, a website dedicated to exploring great buildings. And they mean explore in more than just the figurative or virtual sense as they give driving directions and other visitor info for each building. Very cool.

The coincidence comes from the fact that one of TW/BT's buildings is a next door neighbor to one of Kahn's out in California. Tying things up into an even tighter bundle, TW/BT's only public New York building is the American Folk Art Museum, located right next door to MoMA, also part of my post about the movie Proteus.

This isn't that impressive, is it?

I'm a big fan of TW/BT and I'm super-duper psyched-up to get a chance to see them at work. And Louis Kahn's buildings took my my breath away when I watched the movie. I recommed checking out their work on-line, in film or in person if you want to see some really great design, or at the very least, design that may influence the work I do for Babble/On.