♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: we begin tonight with a series of programs leading up to president trump's 100th day in office, april 29. since the presidency of franklin roosevelt the 100 day mark has , represented an important symbolic milestone. as president trump nears his 100th day, the administration continues to pursue an ambitious agenda. the president is looking to move this week on a second effort to repeal and replace the affordable care act. in the face of a possible government shutdown, he plans to reveal information about tax reform later this week. supporters applaud his strike on

syria and the confirmation of neil gorsuch. -- to the supreme court. critics say he has made little headway on major legislation and his record low poll numbers reflect this reality. joining me to talk about the presidency, from washington, glenn thrush. he covered the white house for "the new york times." from california, hugh hewitt. he is the host of a popular conservative radio program. and here in new york we also have dan senor, former advisor to mitt romney and paul ryan and , in the office of george w. bush. and philip bump is a correspondent for "the washington post." i am pleased to have all of them here. , how do you go about an assessment of this president after 100 days? hugh: you have to use the old nixon yellow pad, the good and the bad. it has been the best of times and the worst of times. neil gorsuch is a 30 year with, -- win, maybe a 40 year win.

a significant win, and a huge free exercise for the court. there will be many more decisions where justice gorsuch will be on the side of the originalists. it is impossible to overstate how they got that win. on the other hand, the loss of the obamacare repeal is devastating to the idea the -- they could do something if they had all three branches of government. they haven't. that's a major drawback. there are also 20 circuit court judges that are vacant for which only one nominee has been put forward. there are 13 congressional review statutes which have long-lasting, deep implications for the rollback of the federal administrative state. it's a 50-50 perspective. charlie: glenn? glenn: hugh is grading on a curve here.

i will give him props for that. this is a president that, according to a pair of polls, in the abc washington post poll and one by nbc a couple days ago, is in the 42% to 44% approval rating. that is the lowest by far of any president in the modern era. it means he has far less political capital with which to act. he was handed a humiliating defeat on health care stuff. more than that, i think there was a fundamental misapprehension by the president and his team, particularly steve bannon, about how the presidency works. they thought they could achieve a great deal through executive action instead of realizing what most presidents know, which is executive orders are more effective at the end of an administration or the end of a first or second term when legislative routes have been blocked. the president, what we are seeing is him learning over the

-- learning on the jobs. over the last couple weeks, and if you are a reporter, there are a handful of encouraging signs. he is learning after months. charlie: but there's also support among his core base remains very high. glenn: 96% of the people who voted for president trump in november still support him, and his presidency among republicans is still well north of 80, as high as 85%. but his erosion has been fundamentally with people in the middle. independents who voted for him in a lot of these swing states who still disapproved of him. remember, this is one of the most extraordinary elections in modern history because a substantial number of people who voted for the president disapproved of him. charlie: there's also a poll, i'm not sure who did this poll, somebody at the table may know this -- that said he would still beat hillary clinton by three points in the popular vote.

>> if you looked at the erosion that happened, the fact that donald trump was holding so much of his base, hillary clinton supporters are expressing regret. 15% of them said they might look elsewhere, not necessarily for trump, but third-party. donald trump seized on that as he was looking for wins over the next week or so. charlie: and to the larger question? >> the surest sign donald trump is not happy with how he is doing is how he is trying to downplay the 100 day mark. he is not celebrating this week. i think he has had some core wins. certainly the gorsuch nomination is a big win, but he has done a good job of undermining the establishment in washington, undermining the bureaucracy in washington, making things a little uneasy, which i think is something he set out to do and a lot of his supporters approve of. i think he's also done a good job of putting question marks next to president obama's

legacies. again, president obama, when we talk about how popular donald trump is with republicans, we have to keep in mind this is a very partisan polarized moment , for politics. donald trump is seen very well by republicans in the same way barack obama is seen well by democrats. a lot of republicans wanted to see president obama's policies undercut. i think trump has done a good job of moving down that path. charlie: beyond the specifics of health care and other legislative challenges, what is his biggest weakness and strength in terms of the way he has conducted himself, in terms of leadership within the white house? >> i would say mostly in patients. -- impatience. he has this sense that in order to be successful, he has to rack up big wins early. you are right, he got trapped by this 100 day measure. it fueled what's going on in the white house. historically, bill clinton was

widely panned for his first 100 days. if you look back at the press reports. george w. bush, his signature legislative achievement, no child left behind, did not get in until a year after he was sworn in. barack obama, the affordable care act, not enacted until 14 months after. there is a sense in the white house of go, go, as opposed to taking a step back and saying the 100 day mark is meaningless. let's be patient. in other areas, they did act quickly where the president can act quickly and does not need congress, such as acting on syria. i am very critical on a lot of the self-inflicted wounds this president has made and a lot of the noise that shapes the daily headlines is justified. but i would add syria, because he basically enforced barack obama's redline, which barack obama did not do through his entire second term.

trump did it within a matter of days. you have bipartisan support for what he did, which is pretty amazing. i don't think people, including me, would have expected that. charlie: what about temperament? bob gates has been on this program a couple times, and said that the mark of a great president is temperament. does donald trump score high on temperament? hugh: not high, but rising, particularly when it comes to appointments. what dan just said, when you look at general mattis, you look at secretary kelly, and h.r. mcmaster replacing michael flynn in the white house, and you have a trio of national security people who have amped up and created credibility around the president where he was weakest coming into office. so the seachange underway from the obama years, which was leading up from behind, jv's,

redline, aleppo, libya, you name it, it was retreat and reversal day after day, and a frosting is with israel, our closest ally. that has changed in 100 days. the temperament has maybe even masked the fact that he is upping his personnel game, and with it, his control over the second 100 days. charlie: how do we measure this idea that he has changed some of the campaign promises and some of the programs he suggested he would enact as president? does changing your policy or changing personnel in the first 100 days count for you or against you? hugh: i think with donald trump it counts for you. the fact that he reached out to secretary gates to recruit secretary tillerson to the ministration counts for him. i see a lot of good developments in donald trump learning how to

be president. he's a good developer. he's learning how to get the next project done. i remain concerned. the biggest problem in the first 100 days is no one is at the department of state with rex tillerson. only jeff sessions has stepped -- staffed up a cabinet department. scott pruitt is alone at epa. you have almost nobody at defense with jim mattis. that has been a big breakdown. administrations typically have more people in the pipeline. charlie: so that is a failure? hugh: yes. >> on the issue of national security, how he is managing his administration, people i speak to in the white house say on domestic policy and economic policy, it's chaotic. they're not going to mask that. on national security issues, the president seems strikingly deferential to mcmaster, mattis, kelly. charlie: there, he has no experience. he has deferred to people with experience. >> on syria, he said, show me options, had a lot of meetings. he actually chose the most

cautious option they presented to him. on the national security front, he seems to respect expertise that's not his own. charlie: but on the economic issue, he also has gary cohn in the white house. he has mnuchin at treasury. he has the secretary of commerce, weighing in on economic issues. there are multiple heads is speaking to that. >> i think we saw in early tests test of his ability to affect economic change with the health care bill, which did not go well. i think that is because he did not have a lot of ownership. they had to take ownership retroactively. this week, he will announce his tax report package, supposedly a 15% tax cut for corporations. there will probably be more support from republicans than you would expect, but that will

be a good test of the extent to which donald trump, this is an area he can get the job done, it is my wheelhouse, it is what i can do. it will be a big test. he showed in health care fight that he has trouble figuring out how to manage congress and get them pointed in the right direction. this will be the second big challenge. charlie: he also pulled out of tpp. glenn, what about health care legislation? can he make a deal with the freedom caucus? can he somehow quiet the ranks in the republican party and get a health care bill passed? glenn: i think it's pretty unlikely. a lot of the pressure is coming from reince priebus, who, as everyone knows, is close to house speaker paul ryan. both of them took it on the chin during this. reince priebus, his position is somewhat more secure than it was in the white house but he is , still not a powerful chief of staff. he is staking a lot on reviving the health care thing. i think it is very unlikely, and in order to get it through the

freedom caucus, he has to get rid of the pre-existing conditions provision. this is a one house bill. we are talking about the potential of passing this, jamming it through the house, having members walk the plank, only to have it killed in the senate. i think that's a difficult situation for him. as we know, there is a knock on effect, because they were hoping to achieve $1 trillion worth of savings to roll it into the tax cuts. now what they have to do is come up with $1 trillion or do some serious deficit spending, which is an anathema to other people in the house. wherever he goes is the point here, he finds somebody blocking his way. there's a reason there's gridlock in washington. about theth hugh president changing the general tone of the place. but in terms of figuring out how to get this stuff done -- remember, this is a guy whose party controls absolutely everything in washington. it's funny, we are hearing people talk about the schumer

shut down. the republicans are trying to push this notion that chuck schumer and the democrats are going to stop the train from leaving the station. right now it's not just a test for the president, but the republicans, who, after all, are the dominant ruling party and washington, d.c. >> i agree. if you compare this period to barack obama, president obama had a unified democratic party and a very organized opposition. trump has a completely un-united republican party. charlie: still controls all sectors. >> controlling all sectors, but it is partly because president trump did not run on a conservative agenda. everyone is trying to figure out where they fit in this new republican party being led by donald trump, so it is many things, but not movement conservatism as we have known it for the last 30 years. charlie: on syria, obviously that was a successful strike in terms of a limited goal, to stop them from using chemical weapons. on the other hand, people point

out that there is no strategy. there's no real knowledge of where to go from here, except for the fact that the president said, i don't want to get involved in the syrian civil war. that is not what i want to do. >> i think we saw secretary mattis in afghanistan this morning and h.r. mcmaster following him there, if he is not there already, as they prepare a plan for the president, which i expect him to adopt. i do believe he will get the military above the $54 billion that mick mulvaney asked for if a resolution works. i'm one of those republicans calling it the chuck schumer shutdown, because it takes 60 --es to pass the rabbit resolution. if there's any border security, senator schumer said he will shut it down. the strategy has to be first to restock the shelves. president obama left the department of defense barren. 60% of our f-18s are not ready to fly. we only have 10 carriers ready

to deploy. the japanese defense forces are sending destroyers that with the carl vinson to the korean peninsula. if chuck schumer wants to shut down the government over the wall, i think the democrats, we should talk about them. we should talk about them in the 100 days. they have really moved to the left. i think part of what we are seeing is bernie sanders's affect on the democratic party is part of the legacy of these 100 days. they have gone way to the left. charlie: north korea is his biggest challenge. >> president obama was handing the transition off to the incoming administration. apparently he and his team warned the incoming administration that this was it, the sleeper problem. they could consume his administration. if there was one problem they didn't address they would have it was handling north korea. charlie: president obama had a philosophy they thrive if you , pay attention, so don't pay attention.

>> don't make a lot of noise, and they won't make noise. the people around president trump has been forward leaning. just as they have been for syria, they are toward north they are not interested in just korea. ratcheting things down. charlie: i think general mattis said the days of strategic patience are over. >> i think there is early progress in that regard. especially getting china on point is no small thing. when people say president trump flipped on the currency manipulation -- i get it, you can get whiplash trying to keep track of them -- however, it was probably in response to the fact that the chinese government, for the first time, was sending ships back. it was coal ships, they were sending them back. the first time. the noose was starting to tighten. was this directly connected to

the president's diplomacy? i don't know, but it seems like a coincidence. charlie: other than foreign policy, one of the things that was said about president obama is that there was reservation about his will after the red line, especially among the arab countries. saudi arabia, the emirates, and others. where does donald trump stand on that? is that a plus or minus? >> i think donald trump has shown he is willing to take action without reservation, to some extent. we made the point earlier that he is sitting down and making decisions based on meetings, but he is not showing the same lack of willingness to enter into foreign policy challenges. he said on the campaign trail that he was going to make china deal with this issue, but it seems as though he has gotten china to wrap their hands around it more than barack obama was

willing to do. i think one of the things he managed to do on the campaign trail was portray himself as a different sort of foreign policy person than he's going to be. he talked about being hands-off and leading it to other people, but he's showing a willingness to dive in and away barack obama didn't. >> people on the conservative foreign-policy right are all excited to claim trump as a neoconservative. he's willing to engage in the middle east, willing to use force. the truth is he is not a neocon, but he's also not an isolationist. people thought he was going to be an isolationist, me included. he is not he's somewhere in , between. >> i think he's leading the world into a different era. king abdullah coming to the white house, benjamin netanyahu, the sunni israeli axis aligned to oppose the hezbollah axis,

that is real. i think we can put to bed talk that vladimir putin and donald trump will be best buddies. that is clearly not happening. i think theresa may going to the electorate on june 8 is going to strengthen the idea that the world longs for leadership from the west, not le pen. she's off the chart. she is not trumpist. i think she is an outlier. donald trump has had a lot to do with it, as has jim mattis and nikki haley at the un. i am very satisfied with the way he has begun his foreign-policy, much more so than i am with his domestic agenda in the house. charlie: i have to ended there, thank you both. we will continue all week talking about president trump and the first 100 days, exploring things we didn't talk about today, including the economy and regulation, or the end of certain regulations. all of that and more as we look

at president trump's first 100 days. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪ charlie: on sunday, france held

what is being called the country most consequential election in recent years. two antiestablishment candidates, marine le pen and emmanuel macron, advanced to the runoffs. may 7the result was seen as a

rebuke of france's traditional mainstream parties. today, le pen stepped aside as the leader of the national front. some say the dissolution of the french party system as well as the european union, and the general election proves to be a crucial test case for both the future of france and europe. joining me is adam gopnik, an author and staff writer at the new yorker. michiel vos, and from paris, france, sophie pedder. she is that paris bureau chief of "the economist," magazine. i am pleased to have all of them here to talk about the implications of the french vote. i first want to go to paris. tell me the mood in france today after seeing this first-round result. sophie: >> i think the french are just beginning to come to terms with what they've managed to do, which is to evict both of the two parties that have

french presidency since 1958. it is an extraordinary situation. you have two candidates, one of them from a party that didn't even exist a year ago, and the other from the far right. there is a mood of apprehension, little bit of surprise about the outcome, and excitement. one of the candidates is only 39 years old in a country where candidates tend to be around a long time before they become president. this is a big change. charlie: how do you explain that phenomenon of emmanuel macron? sophie: i think he responds to a mood in france that is something different, but that mood has been partly met by the candidates on the extreme, and also a yearning for a different kind of politics. i think the french are fed up with the facts of that the presidency rotates left to right and things do not change much. growth is slow, unemployment is high, youth unemployment is around 25%. people feel they want a different way of doing politics.

along he came, he's young and energetic, decided to build something across party borders. a sort of cross-partisan attempt. point scoring, the divisions we have seen over the last 20 or 30 years, i think it captured the mood. it only captured the mood of a certain segment of the population. his great challenge now is to gotd on that and the 24% he and try and make sure he can bring the country together around -- in the second round. charlie: adam, i know how much you love this country. we're looking at a place -- one or two years when we see lots of upsets and populist risings. could it happen? adam: we've been thinking about it. the terrible trifecta of brexit, trump, and le pen. anything could happen and we have been shocked too often to deny the possibility. it seems unlikely.

macron's lead in the polls is quite large. even more important than that is what happened yesterday. francois fillon the leading , conservative for the candidacy, he was derailed by various corruption scandals immediately endorsed macron. , there is a large ideological gap between them. exactly what no respectful establishment republican would do in our election which is not , 2016. only criticize donald trump, but openly say, i am going to vote for hillary clinton. he said i am openly going to vote for the patriotic candidate instead of the nationalist, and someone thatorse is clearly not an enemy of the republic. it is part of the french inheritance. frankly, history affects everything. the vichy, there is a primary

difference between between enemies of the republic and friends of the republic. even someone on the ideological divide from you who is clearly invested in the idea of republican politics, the french sense, is a more reliable, a central ally than any ideological divide can account for. charlie: can we say in any way that this is a victory for marine le pen and people point to the next presidential election five years from now? michiel: you could say that if you look at how the establishment is now reacting. macron has painted himself as not being the establishment, but everybody lines up behind him immediately. 10 past 8:00, the endorsements rolled in. it is different from when her -- it is different from when marine le pen's dad made it to the second round. back then, there was a populist movement, we are about to hand the republic into the abyss, we

have to do something. 15 years later, these and lements for macron pen, they seem mechanical. there we go again, le pen in the second round, let's round up the usual suspects. let's do the endorsements. francois fillon, everyone saying macron is our chance, the only way out, the answer to keep europe, to not go anti-immigrant, cannot close ourselves off from the rest of europe and go against immigration, etc. it feels a little tired. i hope he wins, let's be honest. full disclosure. but it feels a little tired that the establishment almost gives him the kiss of death. he becomes the establishment by being embraced by the same establishment. now you, young boy, 39 years old, you have to save the republic. the country is in deep crisis. adam: maybe, but it also depends

on your vision of politics. if you believe in utopian politics, it is probably a bad thing. if you believe in remedial politics, one of my great mentors in france always said, "i don't know what's good, but i always know what's bad." he said we can build our political faith on identifying the what is bad in doing our best to prevent it. on that minimal but very crucial remedial sense, the coalition behind macron is a positive thing. i was not there yesterday, imf the role of the expert on what he has not seen. and talking to french friends and people i respect all day today, what i have heard is that there was a surprising amount of positive optimism about macron. many people have compared it to obama eight years ago. they see him as a unifying figure, a breath of fresh air. there is a unifying idea around macron, there was a failure of

the last three presidencies. they were perceived to be abysmal failures in many ways. i don't think that macron is the -- simply the little boy putting his finger in the -- he is a positive force in many people's minds. charlie: the idea of the dissolution of the french party system, the parties that have done well and have not done well. >> the parties on the right have always been in flux. we had the rally for the republic of the union for the presidential majority, then the republicans. parties are always changing their name and identity a little bit. the national front, the extreme right-wing party, has been around for a long time. it is an entrenched party of the extreme right. there is no question that macron represents, as obama did in 2008, at least

the appearance of an alternative form of politics. like obama it is predicated on , the idea that we're less divided than our politics make us seem. it is very hard to substantiate as a governing policy. he will have a parliament that does not share a platform with him, nor share any partisan identification. >> let's say he makes it. the big loser is the average le pen voter who is not always racist or anti-muslim, but feels left out of the system, a little like the trump voter. feels like an outsider in their own country, not represented by paris or bankers or any elite, or the establishment. those people are going to be left out. she did very well in vast swaths in the north and east, those people are like "let's go again." he looks good, presented well,

and he will take it away from us. she ran on i am le france, they all try that of course. charlie: what does it mean to be french? >> of course, the goal, she has wrapped her self in -- i represent. that is a big question, what is france? the bigook at it in picture, what is happening now in our world, that is the scary and provocative question. the things sheat stands for, what we think about liberal democracy, openness to the world, not free market economics in a narrow sense, but some form of a social democracy, a governed and regulated free market, are seen to not fulfill people's feeling -- appetite for identity. for firm identity, feeling they have a common national identity

that allows them to feel safe in the world. that was true here, and true in britain. that seems to be motivating this vote. i am a heretic about it. it seems the economic precariousness is a secondary factor. charlie, we have been talking about france for a long time. they have always had a very high level of unemployment for the last 20 years. many economic issues, and economic successes. charlie: the large role of the state in the economy. >> a huge role in the state in the economy. someone once said to me, france is the one country where communism worked. that is in large part true. >> yesterday, maybe. versus issue of identity cosmopolitanism is pervasive, the thread that runs through these. charlie: there is the cultural factor, too. >> did you or do you benefit

from broader globalization, or do not? if you do it is macron. ,if you don't, benefit from globalization, you vote extreme right or extreme left. charlie: i wonder if beyond populism, there is a kind of a feeling of dread. that le pen is, because of her father and what he was and the views he's expressed, the people around her they think are too deeply connected. either in terms of their own ideas or personal opinions, to fascism. >> there is no question. le pen senior was a follower of the vichy regime. he was an admirer of it. that is the roots of this party and there is no denying it. she has tried to sanitize it a good deal. but you can't sanitize it completely.

the crux of their ideologies seems to be anti-islam and anti-muslim rather than anti-semitic. a friend told me you have to remember that hating muslims is a recreation for some people and hating jews is a religion. you can't roll out the anti- anti-semitic. these are scary people, the old french far right that collaborated and were part of vichy. there is no putting a pretty face on it, marine le pen stands for the worst. charlie: is there some sense in the selection that france looks at the world and we know if you follow closely, a lot of very technology that has been developed in france and reflects some of the things that have made america great, they have that. but a sense that france has fallen behind what it might have been, because it was not a modern

state and did not have the same kind of economic growth engines that other states did, whether they were in asia or the united states? sophie: i would say this is particularly the case with relation to germany. france and germany were the founding members of the european project, and they consider themselves equals -- or at least the french consider themselves equals with germany. over the last 15 years you have seen an extraordinary divergence from performance. germany has done very well and has benefited from the eurozone. they have full employment. they are a country that has outperformed the average in terms of economic growth. france has done the opposite. they never managed to break the cycle of joblessness and poor growth. the french feel it is uncomfortable, because their political clout in europe and the world stage is dependent on their economic clout.

losing that sense of economic power has been difficult for france, and it has made them, in a way, the junior partner, for the last five years, and before that, with germany. that is uncomfortable. who does one call when one wants to talk to europe, it is angela merkel not the french president. that added to the sense that france has lost its way. charlie: i have to say goodbye, because we are to lose the feed from paris. thank you so much, great to have you on the program. sophie: good to be with you. charlie: speak to the point. >> when asking yourself in europe how can you run a , european union when every two months holland, , france, who knows what else country, not only are the regular politics on the ballot, but the existence of the european union. there is always one party that does very well that says we are going to get out of the european union. no more currency, we are done. it is over and done, not working

for us. it is hard to run -- consider it like we have faith in this european project -- if it is a taste of the brexit or the chance of the brexit coming up in every election from country to country that is disorienting , for europeans, i feel and i hear. they came up in this election and will come up in the next. charlie: if macron does win if he can become the leadership of a new european union? >> that is what many in france hope, and that he can rejuvenate the european union. the picture of the european union was always a french jockey on a german horse. the jockey has been mud-bound for a long time. i think that is part of it. one thing alarming to us who love the france is how quickly we have amnesia about what the european union accomplished coming out of 70 years of the most horrific wars ever fought,

certainly in the west. the european union has given europe, with all of its faults and bureaucratic nonsense, 60 years of prosperity and peace. charlie: it was overwhelmed by the notion that brussels was controlling local affairs. complaint, there are complaints about democratizing the union. brussels made it easy. they went too far. now, people are resisting. charlie: emmanuel macron appeared on this program a number of years ago while he was the economics minister in the hollande government. here's one question i asked him about the future of populism in europe. here it is. emmanuel macron: populism in europe are fueled by its first crisis and unemployment. ofy held by the absence vision, willingness.

i am not concerned or freight about that. i just want to solve the situation and fight against it. my deep conviction is there is a strong future for europe. europe is a great continent. what we have to do now is accelerate our reform programs, to accelerate a solidarity program inside europe and the eurozone precisely to deal with , unemployment, especially for our young people. and to propose a future to the generation. thee stay like that, dismantling of the eurozone will be fate. charlie: are those the ideas that won him the election? >> you can see that steady, unblinking blue-eyed gaze, it looks like a great general. at the same time, anyone is sympathize is with amended little is bound to be a

bit struck in the pit of your stomach by the generalities he has offered. more solidarity, a project for youth. those of the kinds of words we have heard many times before. they lack specificity, and they lack any particular particularization. he has been called the french kennedy. but it could be a tad slick for the french. they need more grounding and detail. how about france giving it over to a 39-year-old neophyte who has for elected office after so many years of grand old statesmen who may not have done such a great job? it is amazing how fast the country was like, the 39-year-old or the right-wing extremist. >> the image of jfk was extremely popular in france. reminds me more of tony blair in 1997.

a young man, hugely appealing, a third wave, intended to dissolve and materialize in the absence of a specific project. >> reinventing politics is a reactive policy. he came apart on that particularly. there is something wishful about it. i would rather have the wishful ness of macron. >> if he survives that -- charlie: we will see what kind of government he forms. great to have you here. great to see adam gopnik on this program, because he has been away composing a musical which , will debut in new haven, connecticut. soon. >> may 10, the most beautiful room in new york. charlie: we will be back in just a moment. ♪ charlie: louis kahn is one of

the greatest 21st century architects known for combining modernism with ancient architects. he is called one of the most beloved architects of our time. athaniel kahn, his son, made 2003 documentary about his father. here is a look at louis khan, his own words. >> in high school, i had a teacher in the arts, head of the department, and he gave a course

in architecture, the only course in high school, i'm sure, in greek, roman, renaissance, egyptian and classic architecture. at that point, two of my colleagues and myself realized that only architecture would be my life. how accidental our existences are, how influenced by circumstance. charlie: telling the story of his life and work. i'm pleased to have her at the table to talk about him and architecture. what is your interest? >> how did i get interested in louis kahn? mainly, originally through nathaniel's movie. i sighed in 2003 a couple times when it came out. then i let that lapse for a thee until they build to four freedoms monument on roosevelt island. i happen to be walking there and

i was stunned by the architecture and what is said to me essentially, that it spoke in a way i felt i could respond to. i've been looking at the subject of another biography, and i seem to be the right one. charlie: he was the most beloved architect? >> he seems to have been. he did not fall into any camp. the brutalist love him, the everyone from the different sources of architecture seem to feel that he is the one that best represents them. charlie: why is he considered a great architect? >> for the reason you mentioned earlier, he combines modernism with something more ancient. modernism was in danger of being in human and machine like, lots of steel and cold surfaces. he, after a stay at the american academy in rome, was very

influenced by ancient roman architecture, by the pyramid's and greek ruins. he built from 1950 onwards that , heavy, solid, concern with materials. that is one reason. another is his use of natural light. he is great at bringing natural light into his buildings, and that makes them wonderful. charlie: a series of buildings brought him worldwide acclaim? wendy: yes, that is true. six undebatable masterpieces. the philips exeter library, the plus yale center for british art in new haven and two on the indian subcontinent, the indian institute of management and the national assembly building in the capital bangladesh. those are the six that no one would argue with. then i think there are another that herrific buildings

made from a 1953 onward, starting with that gail our gallery and extending through several private houses and a number of very appealing buildings. charlie: we want to take a look at these. you understand architecture, then we will talk more about the man. if you understand the man, you will understand the architecture. the institute in la jolla, california, it is amazing. building. beyond the edge is the pacific ocean. wendy: it is wonderful, and the way he structured the view in that way so your eye pulls toward it. charlie: the second is a picture of them estonia as small children. when did he come to the united states? wendy: when he was five years old, in 1906. charlie: another of him at the yale art gallery. another at the philips exeter library exterior.

comment on any you would like to. wendy: this was provided by me from the philips exeter library. it is an old shot it looks like , a roman ruin at the top. there are those open windows. charlie: a roof of the assembly building. wendy: it is wonderful. that pictures by this photographer, who did wonderful pictures. it is like a tent floating over the assembly hall. charlie: then the mosque in the assembly building. wendy: that is my favorite of any of his buildings or you can see how the light comes in. charlie: what was it about nathaniel's film -- wendy: that attracted me? two things. it is great as an essay film, a person writing about his father, taking pictures and talking. a person per training his father in a way that is interesting about their relationship.

shows the buildings and a light i have never seen in any still photographs. you get a feel for them the way he moves the camera through them. the most interesting thing about the movie that everyone remarks upon is that louis khan had three families, three children with three different women, all essentially living simultaneously in philadelphia. he remained married to the wife, the mother of the oldest child, even others he had two children with two successful lover -- successive lovers. charlie: did they all know about each other? wendy: that was a discovery that i made researching my book. they knew about each other. they knew about each other in person. the children met, and through the children, the mothers met. the wife was not eager to associate with the other two women come although she was aware of them in the other two children. but the other two women became friends, and their children became friends. charlie: you have written about

music, a novel, but you haven't written about architecture. wendy: no, i have not written about architecture before. but when i was in high school and college it -- college i was , interested in becoming a city planner, which i never did. but i did a certain amount of research in that field. this was coming back to something i had once been interested in. charlie: tell me about his death. wendy: his death took place in penn station here in new york. what i was interested in, and part of the reason i put his death at the beginning of the book, is that it was an unsolved mystery. a lot of people had confusion about it. some people thought he is in carrying a crossed out passport, that is why he wasn't identified for two days. some thought he died in grand central, some people thought other things, some people did not realize he died of a heart attack. i wanted to straighten that story.

i ordered the police report and opened up a box that had never been opened in the philadelphia archive to investigate his death. it was simple, the explanation. the police got his address wrong because they probably pulled a business card out of his pocket. instead of notifying his wife at her home address, they notified the police in philadelphia to go to the work address. it was a st. patrick's sunday, day, and the message did not get delivered. that miscommunication resulted in his body being lost for two days or captain missing persons in new york until they finally found him. his wife was searching madly. from the moment he didn't show up, she and his secretary were making phone calls, calling political figures to help them search. there was a search until he was found. charlie: does he remind you of any architects we have in america? wendy: none. i cannot think of anyone who

does the same work. he has inspired younger architects, and i think they all borrow something from him when they are interested in materials and natural light, but no one's work looks like his to me. charlie: that is the distinction of what makes a great architect. if you can see a building and say that is frank gehry, that is louis khan. wendy: what makes his different, is when you go inside the story is different. -- the story the building tells you is different. it leads you through it in a way that is an actual narrative. i do not find that in too many other buildings. charlie: did he design bad buildings? wendy: yes. he designed some that weren't as good as his great ones. i don't think any of them should be torn down. he is a great architect, everything he made is worth preserving. but for instance, right next to

the phillips exeter library is the phillips exeter dining hall, one of the least great he ever made. they could fix it if they rerouted the traffic inside, or something. charlie: was he friends with architects? wendy: he was. he was friendly with philip johnson, who was the head of the moma architecture department. charlie: playing a role in defining architecture? wendy: one of his great triumphs was he got a single exhibition theoma dedicated to richards building in pennsylvania. in 1961 moma gave that to louis khan. that was largely philip johnson's doing. charlie: thank you. thank you, for joining us. see you next time. ♪ alisa: i'm alisa parenti.

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