LOUIS I KAHN

• His life

• Development as an

architect

• Noted works

INTRODUCTION•Louis Isadore Kahn was born in 1901 on the

Baltic island of Osel, Estonia.

•At the age of four, Kahn moved with his family

to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

•The family couldn't even afford pencils but

made their own charcoal sticks from burnt

twigs so that Louis could earn a little money

from drawings and later by playing piano to

accompany silent movies.

•Kahn attended public schools and

supplemented his education with art classes

at the local industrial Art school, where he

focused on drawing and he continued until his

high school.

•Kahn earned his bachelor’s degree from

Pennsylvania University in 1924. He closely

studied under Paul Philippe Cret, an architect

trained under École des Beaux Arts.

•After graduating from Penn in the spring

of 1924, Kahn went on to work for

Philadelphia City Architect, John Molitor.

Working primarily as a draftsman, Kahn was

involved on a number of civic designs After

graduating from Penn in the spring of

1924, Kahn went on to work for

Philadelphia City Architect, John Molitor.

Working primarily as a draftsman, Kahn was

involved on a number of civic designs

•There is possibilities that educational

model of École des Beaux Arts that Thomas

Eakins – and later Paul Cret at the

University of Pennsylvania – had an impact

on Kahn both as a professor and as an

architect.

•In 1928, Kahn made a European tour and

took a particular interest in the medieval

walled city of Carcassonne, France and the

castles of Scotland rather than any of

the strongholds

of classicism or modernism.

• From 1957 until his death, he was a

professor of architecture at the School of

Design at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mussollini’s foro, Italico

DEVELOPEMENT AS AN ARCHITECT Kahn’s formation took place before the modern architecture

had established a firm hold in us. He was rigorously trained

in Beaux-arts system and therefore was aware with the

classical grammar, with devices of axial organization and an

attitude to design which took it for granted that one should

consult tradition for support.

He certainly realized the need for the change which better

accommodated the needs and the means of times. He seemed

to particularly learn lessons from Sullian and Wright and

later from Meis Wan-Der Rohe.

When Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoy was published around the

world in 1929, Vincent Scully wrote, “suddenly one could no

longer look at buildings that were symmetrical, massive,

heavy; one could no longer use the classical order in which

Kahn had been trained, because now architecture had to be

thin, taut, light, asymmetrical, stretched out to pure idea.”

Suddenly, in 1929, Kahn found himself at an intersection of

two divergent architectural perspectives.

He was a slow developer, and his designs of

houses in forties were unexceptional extensions

to International Style.

A stay at the American Academy in Rome in the

early 1950s marked a turning point in Kahn's

career. The back-to-the-basics approach adopted

after visiting the ruins of ancient buildings in

Italy, Greece, and Egypt helped him to develop his

own style of architecture.

Influenced by ancient ruins, Kahn's style tends

to the monumental and monolithic; his heavy

buildings do not hide their weight, their

materials, or the way they are assembled.

Louis Kahn's works are considered as

MONUMENTAL beyond modernism. Famous for his

meticulous built works, his provocative unbuilt

proposals, and his teaching, Kahn was one of the

most influential architects of the 20th century.

Kahn’s architecture was based on social vision.

For he believed there to be archetypal patterns

of social relationship that it was the business of

architecture to uncover and celebrate. A good

plan would be the one which would found the

central meaning.

Oser house

(1940-1942)

He believed that any architectural

problem had an ‘essential’ meaning which

far transcended a mere functional

diagram.

A good design is one where the ‘form’,

the underlying meaning, was coherently

expressed through all the parts.

The idealistic position with regards to

spiritual roots of both social and

aesthetic realms motivated hi major

designs in 60’s and led him to clarify a

simple set of type forms based on primary

geometry.

One is struck with the consistency of

plans, with primary meaning of institution

is expressed in central space and

secondary space tends to be set out as a

fringe around the primary generator.

These designs are inspired by symbolic

and cosmological geometry, mandalas,

and ancient ruins.

Like Wright, Kahn believed in ‘cause

conservative’, invoking the elemental law

and order in all great architecture. He

was able to achieve this spirit not by

copying past but by probing the

underlying principles and attempting to

universalize them

For Kahn the aim of architecture doesn’t

change, only the means.

Eherik house

(1959-61)

YALE ART GALLERY (1951-1953)

One of his famous structures and the first

significant commission, the Yale University Art

Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut was designed

when he was a visiting critic at the Yale School of

Architecture as the first of three art museums to

be designed and built.

• While walking along the bordering street of the

campus, the building’s blank walls stand out

against the neo-Gothic background of the

university. He responded to the many levels and

textures of an electric urban environment with

a subtle, inward looking design.

• The building is a masterpiece of simplicity of

form and light, a sleek, four-story box with

elegantly austere glass and gray concrete

cinder-block walls divided by a central elevator

bank and circular stairwell. But the building's

blank walls mark a radical break with the neo-

Gothic context of the university. Kahn's critics

called this a "brutalist" gesture.

.

The plan suggests that the entire

building is a displaced box whose core

elements lock the composition in

place. If the core elements were

removed, the geometry of the building

would collapse to an originating

square.

• The interior space seemed to evoke an entirely

different world from the brash mass-produced

environment of standardized panels and

suspended ceilings. The effects of the light

falling over the weave of a diagrid ceiling and the

elegant and bare concrete supports.

• As is apparent in this structure, Kahn typically

tended toward heavily textured brick and bare

concrete, which he wonderfully juxtaposes

against more refined and pristine surfaces, like

the exterior that took over the Miesian glass and

steel ; giving new irregularity and softness while

the side walls and interior were evocative of

Wright.

• At the rear garden terrace, the continuous paving

courses parallel to the rear fenestration denote this

shift. The virtual shift of the upper terrace uncovers

the ground, allowing us to ascend from the lower

terrace via the double run of exterior stairs.

• The commission brought about Kahn’s discovery of

structure, materials, and perhaps most important, the

power of the forms he was capable of creating.

• The Yale Art Centre served to catalyze many of his

basic ideas and beliefs about architecture.

• The hollow concrete tetrahedral space-frame allows for the

omission of ductwork while also reducing the standard requirements

regarding floor-to-floor height. His interest in pushing the

boundaries with technology led him to design this waffle-slab that

served as the floor of one room and just as functionally became the

ceiling of another.

• The front door is found in a recessed corner that is defined by an

absent rectangle following the pattern of the glass fenestration.

Kahn invoked a Miesian vision of glass with the recessed wall,

reflected on the opaque white curtains behind the fenestration. He

dematerialised the wall through which we enter.

Sketch by Louis Kahn of the

Palazzo Vecchio, No.2, Florence,

Italy 1950, drawn just before

he designed the Yale Art

Gallery.

this building is also known for

the structural innovations.

The stair was contained in a.

Tcylindrical volume and rose

through a series of triangular

change in direction, hinting on

the distinction of function

and circulation.

SALK INSTITUTE (1959-1965)

The Salk Institute was conceived in 1960. Jonas Salk,

who founded the polio vaccine, approached Louis I.

Kahn to be the architect for a biomedical research

institute.

Salk’s humanitarian vision “that medical research

does not belong entirely to medicine or the physical

science. It belongs to population,” intrigued Kahn to

believe his client could understand his architectural

envisions and endeavours. The Salk Institute began as

a collaborative vision shared between the architect

and the client.

The three main clusters were planned that expresses

the form of the Salk Institute – the laboratory, the

meeting place [the meeting house], and, the living

place [the village].

There are three phases in the design development of the Salk Institute, which from the very

beginning have included the ‘activities’ of laboratory, meeting place, and residence. The three

phases are evident of three different configurations of these activities.

First phase:

Laboratories were clustered in four

towers with its services and utilities

separated at its proximity.

Residences were clustered inwardly

focusing on courtyards.

A rectilinear meeting complex of lecture

halls and auditorium were joined

linearly by an ambulatory.

Second phase:

Four, “two-storey laboratory blocks

were arranged around a pair of garden

courts, with a central alley for service

and air intake to the two central

blocks.”

Residences were arranged as sixteen

pavilions along the contours of the

ridge. Meeting Place clustered in a

rather centralized manner.

Final phase:

Two six-story laboratory blocks with five

‘porticos of studies’ facing a central

plaza were implemented.

Residences remained arranged by contour

of the ridge with “seven different types of

two-storey buildings equipped with ample

porches and balconies lined both sides of

a narrow pedestrian street.”

Meeting Place was still centrally

arranged, but “the square theatre of the

earlier plan has been replaced by a

classical, fan-shaped proscenium… which

introduces visitors to the complex.”

As suggested by Wiseman, Kahn spent time

at India and Pakistan during the

development of Salk Institute, most

probably “had seen examples of Mughal

gardens that employed water elements may

have been the source for the channel and

the fountain at the institute.”

These defined activities of inflexible program tend to

concentrate around a flexible program of an open

‘courtyard’ space in Kahn’s design to allow for

‘breathing.’ Kahn has reflected such Islamic

architecture representations into the Salk Institute,

following Luis Barragán,s advice to discard the idea

of a garden and leave the courtyard to be a plaza,

creating ‘a facade to the sky, which the cosmos is

brought into the courtyard that acts as the infinite

void to represent forever.

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY,DHAKA (1962-1974)Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban (National Assembly Building)

in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is perhaps the most important building

designed by Kahn. Kahn got the design contract with the help

of Muzharul Islam, his student at Yale University, who worked

with him on the project. It is the centrepiece of the national

capital complex designed by Kahn that includes hostels, dining

halls, and a hospital.

Kahn and his team also considered the placement of the

structures within the cardinal (directional) points. Eventually

they decided to shift the Prayer Hall east, to face toward

Mecca.

Kahn felt strongly that the structures he designed for this

site should not just stand for the political nature of the

National Assembly’s activities but also for their spiritual

nature.

Once the design was complete, Kahn and his team began to plan

the construction phase of the project. Kahn worked with his

long-time colleague August Komendant, structural engineer.

Louis Kahn’s National Assembly Building

of Bangladesh in Dhaka is an extraordinary example of

modern architecture being transcribed as a part of

Bengali vernacular architecture.

The project was designed in two

phases. The first phase included the

National Assembly Building, a prayer

hall, and dormitories. With the

expectation that eight hundred more

acres would be acquired, the complete

master plan included courtrooms, a

hospital, a museum, schools, and low-

and high-income residential areas.

•With this project, Kahn first focused on the

National Assembly Building itself, which was to

include a two-hundred-seat chamber for the

legislature to convene in, a prayer hall, a dining

hall, and numerous offices. He started his design

process with rough sketches of a large square

structure with four corner towers. Then he went

on to make rough sketches of the entire site,

including secondary structures, such as

dormitories and hostels, to the east and west of

the National Assembly Building.

•After he finalized his concept for the National

Assembly Building, Kahn reconsidered the Prayer

Hall. Originally, this space was not to be

significant in size or scale. But the more Kahn

thought about the nature of the space (designated

for prayer and reflection), the more strongly he

felt that it should be a significant part of the

design. Kahn decided that the Prayer Hall should

serve as the main entrance for the National

Assembly Building

The National Assembly Building sits as a massive entity in the

Bengali desert; there are eight halls that are concentrically

aligned around the parliamentary grand chamber, which is not only

a metaphor for placing the new democratic government at the

heart of the building.

It also is part of Kahn’s design objectives to optimize spatial

configurations where the supporting programs (offices, hotels for

parliamentary officials, and a restaurant) project out of the

center volume.

The entire complex is fabricated out of poured in place concrete

with inlaid white marble, which is not only a modernist statement

of power and presence, but is more of a testament to the local

materials and values.

The sheer mass of the monumentally scaled National Assembly and

the artificial lake surrounding the building act as a natural

insulator and cooling system that also begin to create interesting

spatial and lighting conditions.

Construction was held up in 1971 by war, as East Pakistan

(Bangladesh) sought independence from West Pakistan.

Many feared that the site would be bombed during the

conflict, but enemy pilots bypassed the site, thinking it

was an ancient ruin.

CENTRAL ASSEMBLY

I.I.M. AHEMADABAD(1962-1974)

While Louis Kahn was

designing the National

Assembly Building in

Bangladesh in 1962, he was

approached by Balkrishna

Doshi, to design the 60 acre

campus for the Indian

Institute of Management in

Ahmadabad, India.

•At IIM Kahn created an austere set of geometrically

organised buildings that form shaded courts. These

courts vary in size to provide a variety of settings and

experiences.

•While monumental in a homely way, the sequential

experience provides by moving through the buildings and

the subsequent opening and closing of vistas give a

humane scale to the complex.

•kahn’s use of brick had an impact on India as did his

orchestration of a composition of open spaces and

buildings.

• The large façade omissions are abstracted patterns found

within the Indian culture that were positioned to act as light

wells and a natural cooling system protecting the interior

from India’s harsh desert climate.

• Even though the porous, geometric façade acts as filters for

sunlight and ventilation, the porosity allowed for the

creation of new spaces of gathering for the students and

faculty to come together.

• The architect created a deep zone of transition between the

outer edge and the interiors, to allow fir shaded porticoes

and walkways. The colossal cylinders of baked brick and

concrete had quality of roman ruins.

For Kahn, the design of the institute was more than

just efficient spatial planning of the classrooms; he

began to question the design of the educational

infrastructure where the classroom was just the first

phase of learning for the students.

Kahn’s inquisitive and even critical view at the methods

of the educational system influenced his design to no

longer singularly focus on the classroom as the

center of academic thought.

He implemented the same

techniques in the Indian

Institute of Management

as he had done in

National Asebmbly,

Dhaka such that he

incorporated local

materials (brick

and concrete) and large

geometrical façade

extractions as homage to

Indian vernacular

architecture.

PHILIP EXETER LIBRARY (1965-1972)

The project to build a new and larger library began in 1950

and progressed slowly for several years. By the mid-1960s,

O'Connor & Kilham, the architectural firm that had been

chosen to design the new library and had drafted plans

with traditional architecture. Richard Day arrived as the

new principal of the academy at that point, and found their

design to be unsatisfactory. He dismissed them, declaring

his intention to hire "the very best contemporary architect

in the world to design our library“.

The school's building committee was tasked with finding a

new architect. Influential members of the committee became

interested in Louis Kahn at an early stage, but they

interviewed several other prominent architects as well,

including Paul Rudolph, I. M. Pei, Philip Johnson and Edward

Larrabee Barnes. Kahn's prospects received a boost

when Jonas Salk, whose son had attended Exeter, called

Armstrong and invited him to visit the Salk Institute in

California, which Kahn had recently built to widespread

acclaim. Kahn was awarded the commission for the library in

November 1965.

The Phillips Exeter Academy Library in Exeter, New Hampshire, U.S.,

with 160,000 volumes on nine levels and a shelf capacity of 250,000

volumes, is the largest secondary school library in the world.

Its facade is primarily brick with teak wood

panels at most windows marking the location

of a pair of wooden carrels. The bricks

are load-bearing; that is, the weight of the

outer portion of the building is carried by

the bricks themselves, not by a hidden steel

frame. Kahn calls this fact to the viewer's

attention by making the brick piers noticeably

thicker at the bottom where they have more

weight to bear. The windows are

correspondingly wider toward the top where

the piers are thinner

Another arcade circles the building on the ground floor. Kahn disliked the

idea of a building that was dominated by its entrance, so he concealed the

main entrance to the library behind this arcade. Visitors unfamiliar with the

library tend to wander around its edges before locating the two

entrances, to be found on either side of a glass-walled projection into the

recessed arcade that otherwise fills the first bay of the ground-floor

story

KIMBELL ART MUSEUM(1966-1972)

The Kimbell Art Museum has been admired, studied

and emulated by architects and museum specialists

ever since it opened 30 years ago

It is the unique manner in which

Louis Kahn introduced natural light

within the Museum. At the Kimbell,

natural light enters the space

through a 2½-foot slit at the apex

of Kahn’s distinctive vaulted

ceilings. The light strikes a

suspended convex, perforated-

aluminium “natural light fixture”, in

the words of Kahn that prevents

direct light from entering the space.

As the light reflects onto the cool,

curved concrete, it retains what

Kahn called the “silver” quality of

Texas light

But then, as the light bounces off the

travertine walls and oak floor, it warms

up and seamlessly blends with the warm

light from the incandescent lamps

suspended along the outer edge of the

natural light fixtures. Through this

unique design, Kahn avoided many of the

pitfalls inherent in a museum gallery

where a primary source of illumination is

natural light.

Kahn stays very close to ruins and

subordinates the glass. There is a glass

wall but it is hidden by trees. Inside there

are roman round vaults which have been

deformed to diffused the light.

RICHARDS MEDICAL LIBRARY(1957-1962)

Subtle combination of linear and particulate,

which also created external harbours of

space around exterior.

The geometry, use of space and circulation

suggest Kahn’s influence by Wright’s Larkin

building.

The structural system of pre cast concrete suggests that Kahn attempted to show the

building was put together by connections and joints.

It had a direct, tactile character in the use of brick panel and concrete beams.

The principle difficulty arose due to lack of sun protection on exterior facade and a certain

lack of function ability.

FIRSTUNITARIAN CHURCH

According to Goldhagen, the First Unitarian Church of Rochester

was "the first building Kahn built that gave an indication of his

mature style".

Vincent Scully, in his Modern Architecture and Other Essays,

similarly says "the experience of designing the church at Rochester

seems to have brought Kahn to a confident maturity and confirmed

him in his method of design."

The early stage

drawings were

called as ‘form’

drawings by

Louis I Kahn.

FISHER HOUSE ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL PARK

Submitted by:

• Gaurav Parmani

1216512111

• Sukhneet Kaur

1216512131