My Architect: A Son's Journey Page #8

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Saulie cannot come in by himself.

When was the first time you met Lou?

- Do you remember?

- Can I offer you one?

I'd love one.

Is this satisfactory?

Teddy Kollek is the legendary

former mayor of Jerusalem.

He and Lou worked together

on the synagogue project

for seven years.

Look, first of all, I'm 90 years old.

And my memory has gone altogether.

I remember single

items but not...

you came a little too

late for me on that.

What was it that made it

not possible to build it?

Ruthie?

'Cause unfortunately he died so soon.

No, you had nobody...

you had nobody who dared to

take the plans of your father

- and to complete them.

- No, that's right,

His death stopped it in the middle,

although we didn't have

the funds yet to do it.

But I'm sure we could get the money needed.

But unfortunately, he died

before he completed it.

Now it's a million times

more difficult to create it,

because the whole idea of the Hurva

was to serve the entire city and to be

a cultural and spiritual center.

And to do that today

in the Jewish Quarter

- will be very, very difficult.

- Why?

Because, uh, the...

Because the Jews are quarreling.

Jews are quarreling and...

Why is that,

Teddy, because...

The Jews are quarreling.

People around thought it was too big

and politically it

was trying to compete

with the mosque, and...

Was that... is that wrong?

That... some

people thought it's

it'd create a political

problem with the Muslim, and...

We decided it shouldn't be

higher than the mosque.

- That was the idea.

- That was the decision.

But he redesigned it and I think...

He did redesign; there was...

The two... there were

three schemes in all.

He had a lot more freedom to decide

without any interference

from the public at the time.

I mean, I still hope we'll

be able to do it one day.

So they... who blew it up?

The Jordanians blew it up?

- Yes, in '48.

- In '48? And it was never...

it was never rebuilt?

It was just left this way?

Yes, they thought about

it, but they decided

they are going to keep it that way.

What do you think?

- They should keep it that way.

- Keep it this way?

Not... not

rebuild it. Why?

Because it's something in

our past, in our history.

And we have to remember this.

Many soldiers died in this war.

- So better to leave it?

- Yeah.

- Thank you.

- Thanks.

- Bye.

- Bye.

Actually, Lou agreed with the soldier.

The ruins should be left as a monument.

He wanted to build the new synagogue

in the adjacent plaza instead.

So much has changed since then.

Would he have designed

the same thing now?

Would they have thought

Lou an idealistic dreamer

for wanting to unite

the Jews of the world

with a single building?

Do you think Lou had a

strong sense of being Jewish

and what that meant?

You know, I think it's been overplayed.

Lou was a very spiritual person,

but I don't think that was rooted

necessarily in Judaism.

I think it was as much

rooted in Christianity

and in Buddhism

and in all kinds of myth

that he knew a lot about.

And he felt just at home

doing a mosque in Dhaka

as he was doing the Hurva.

But I think that when he

came here something happened.

Mikveh Israel didn't get built.

He must have been bitter about that.

You know, he must have been aware that

as a Jewish architect he'd done

no great Jewish buildings.

Philadelphia had Frank Lloyd

Wright's synagogue, or temple.

And I think when he came here,

he felt that the Jews

entrusted him to do this.

And I think he wanted very

much to have it realized.

But, you know, he was a real nomad.

And, you know, when I was in the office,

he would come in from a trip,

and he would be in the office

for two or three days intensely.

And he would pack up and go.

And there was this kind of

sense of the nomad in him.

I mean, you know, as

tragic as his death was

in a railway station, it was

so consistent with his life.

You know, I mean, I often think

I'm going to die in a plane

or I'm going to die in an airport

or, you know, die jogging

without an identification on me.

I don't know why I sort of carry that

from that memory of

his, the way he died.

But he was sort of a nomad at heart.

I remember now that Lou had

a little carpet in the office

that he'd roll out in

the floor and sleep on

when he was too tired to keep working.

Maybe he never felt settled anywhere.

He was a wanderer from the beginning.

His family moved 17 times

in their first two years in America.

And it turns out Kahn

wasn't even his real name.

It was Shmalowsky.

His father changed it in 1915.

The only constant in Lou's

life, was his wife Esther.

They were together from

when he was 28 until he died.

I don't know if he thought

of her house as home,

but it was certainly his base.

I used to say to Lou,

"You know, Lou, if you

would put some of your energy

into making money,

you'd be a billionaire."

Money was something that was there.

He would... he

kept saying...

and unfortunately, my daughter,

who's also an artist,

says the same thing.

"But, Mother, it's only money."

And he owned nothing.

He owned nothing.

He didn't believe in owning anything.

Books and neckties.

Other than that, nothing.

He would not own...

I only saw Esther once.

It was at Lou's funeral.

She looked right through me.

Unfortunately, she died

before I could talk to her,

so I have only this interview

she did with an architecture scholar.

In the terrible depression,

when friends would come over,

we couldn't afford to go anywhere.

We would put a magazine up on the piano,

and friends would stand around and say,

"Oh, Lou, play that like

Bach, or play it like Mozart,

or play it like Beethoven,

or play it in jazz."

And he would do that.

We would sing the

notes in this magazine.

And shortly before he died,

he said to me, "You know, Esther,

"I don't think I would

have been a great pianist,

but I might have been a great composer."

There's a house Lou built

outside Philadelphia.

I called up my half sisters

and got them to meet me there.

All these years, we've never talked

about our three families.

I always used to ask him,

"Why don't you design

a house for us, Daddy?"

Right, right.

And once, he explained to me

that he had this idea of a

house with many, many mullions.

And you'd look through those windows,

and you'd see a woman preparing a meal.

It was a very romantic

idea of what home was.

And he could never build it for himself.

I think his vision was just so different

from the way his

personal life really was

that there was

no way he could...

Take the two and put

them together at all.

I had a scrapbook when I was a teenager,

so I would get

little... like I'd save

every card, every

little thing, you know?

No, really, when he...

Oh, these things are two

of his famous bow ties

tied at the rakish angle

very carefully.

Fortunately, my mother

saved some of his ties.

Nice ties.

Well, I heard you guys

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