“My Father, The Genius”

There’s an extraordinary documentary called “My Father, The Genius” playing on the Sundance Channel ( ” title=”Showing times for the documentary on the Sundance Channel”>schedule).

Synopsis from the movie’s site:

When long-estranged father, dreamer and visionary architect, Glen Small bequeaths his daughter the task of writing his biography, she answers instead with an irreverent film about his unstable career and rocky private life – while he is still alive.

Although Glen comes across as a jerk in most of the movie, I could not help but feel sympathy for him. After all, like many of my colleagues, I also left architecture school with my overcharged ego ready to CHANGE THE WORLD!!!

After some hard knocks I (fortunately) came to see this attitude as naïve and immature, and decided to play nice with the rest of mankind. Glen didn’t (was he too smart? passionate? nuts?), and at 61 years of age—when the movie is shot—is financially ruined and professionally unfulfilled. The movie prompts the question: “must you really sacrifice your integrity in order to achieve great things in the world?”

This documentary should be compulsory viewing for all architecture students before graduation. It is the nonfiction version of Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead, one with a very different ending.

Here’s Glen’s site, in case you’re curious about his work. (Note that most of it dates from the 1970s and remains unbuilt.)

August 12, 2003 | Archived in Random Notes