Short Synopsis
Perfectly complementing Nathaniel Kahn’s award-winning documentary, My Architect, Wendy Lesser’s You Say to Brick is a major exploration of iconic architect Louis Kahn's life and work.

Full Synopsis
Born to a Jewish family in Estonia in 1901 and brought to America in 1906, the architect Louis Kahn grew up in poverty in Philadelphia; by the time of his death in 1974, he was widely recognized as one of the greatest architects of his era. Yet this enormous reputation was based on only a handful of masterpieces, all built during the last fifteen years of his life.

Perfectly complementing Nathaniel Kahn’s award-winning documentary, My Architect, Wendy Lesser’s You Say to Brick is a major exploration of the architect’s life and work. Kahn, perhaps more than any other twentieth-century American architect, was a “public” architect. Eschewing the usual corporate skyscrapers, hotels, and condominiums, he focused on medical and educational research facilities, government centers, museums, libraries, parks, religious buildings, and other structures that would serve the public good. Yet this warm, captivating person, beloved by students and admired by colleagues, was also a secretive and mysterious character hiding behind a series of masks.

"Notable for its warm, engaged, literate tone and its psychological acuity. . . . Lesser has done a great deal of traveling for this book, and she has an innate feel for Kahn’s architecture." ---New York Times

"Supremely enlightening . . . Lesser tracks with clarity and drama each demanding phase in Kahn’s evolution" ---Booklist Starred Review

"A splendid biography that penetrates the inner lives of Kahn’s buildings as well as the inner life of their creator." ---Kirkus Starred Review

"Exhaustively researched and poetically written, Lesser’s book offers a fitting and eminently accessible tribute to an architect who so ardently sought to bring beauty to the public square." ---Publishers Weekly

New York Times Bestseller

Kirkus Bestseller

Booklist Review

Washington Post Notable Book

Kirkus Review