The Real World... Can real estate be spiritual? That's a question raised by a new documentary film, My Architect: A Son's Journey, by Nathaniel Kahn, son of Louis Kahn, one of America's greatest architects.

As an architect, Kahn was the ultimate real estate artist. And like all artists he found tremendous tensions between the world of art and the world of commerce. Above all, Kahn sought to express his passion for "geometric compositions of brick, concrete and light."

Do you remember last year's Dispatches on finding your "firm persuasion"? According to David Whyte, "To have a firm persuasion in our work -- to feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for the world at the exact same time
-- is one of the great triumphs of human existence." (Feb 18 & Mar 25, 2003)

Kahn certainly found his firm persuasion. That's an understatement. Yet he found it impossible to balance work and family. When he died he left behind three families -- a wife and child, and two other secret children, all unknown to each other. (The film was made by one of the latter.)

Traveling around the world, his son finally discovers his father's identity as expressed through architecture. As the film draws to a close, you realize that Kahn's buildings really do connect spiritually with people.

--Peter Pike