Alright, this entry isn't really going to be about Laura, my instructor extraordinaire of DAN 127. But I have been thinking a lot about writing a short story about her, especially after she told me in class today, "You know, I thought your body lines in that exercise were quite good, but if you had Danilova for a teacher, she would have yelled at you for having floppy chicken arms." Whoa, good thing I didn't go to the School of American Ballet in the sixties. Still, it was better than what she told poor Marlin, "I thought you were doing the step wrong, but actually your legs are just shaped funny." Oh Laura, where would we be without your scathing honesty? This woman is worth about three Maureen Dowds with a little lemon juice thrown in for tang.
But as I said, this entry isn't about the meanest ballet teacher in the world. It's about the Greatest Modern Architect in the World... Except for Frank Lloyd Wright, and Maybe a Couple Other People. For other interesting looks at the life and work of Louis I. Kahn, I highly recommend the documentary My Architect, which was directed by Kahn's illegitimate son. Or you could just read my Historic Preservation paper, which is pretty sweet too.
Maura Roth-Gormley HP 220: Documenting and Preserving Historic Buildings Professor Sheller 22 March 2009 Beautiful Geometry: the Life and Work of Louis I. Kahn In practically every major American city, in countless modern institutional buildings, the style and influence of one architect inevitably shines through strong and clear. Louis Isidore Kahn’s soaring, geometric design style has been imitated in high rise apartments, public institutions and office buildings across the U.S. in the second half of the twentieth century. His style has become institutionalized in American architecture to the point where an ordinary observer would probably find such replications of his work mundane or even ugly. But despite Kahn’s widespread influence on American buildings, his name and legacy are seldom acknowledged outside of academic circles. Kahn revolutionized modern architecture through his heavy use of brick, stone and cement where previous modern architects had focused on the transparency of steel and glass. By integrating concepts from traditional schools of architecture into his own cutting edge designs, Louis Kahn created an innovative, geometric style which continues to influence American architecture. This paper will focus on four of Kahn’s seminal works, which span his career from small scale suburban homes to monumental government complexes: the Margaret Esherick House outside of Philadelphia, the Phillips Exeter Academy Library, the Salk Institute of Biological Sciences, and Sher-e Bangla Nagar, the National Capital of Bangladesh. Just as his buildings evoke a soulful, unique perspective on design, Louis Kahn’s personal life gives the portrait of a brilliant but peculiar man invested wholeheartedly in his craft. Born in 1901 on a small Estonian island on the Baltic Sea, Kahn immigrated to Philadelphia in 1905, spending his early childhood moving frequently between the city’s impoverished slums. Some historians speculate that it was in these cramped, gloomy tenements that Kahn’s lifelong fascination with open, light-filled interior spaces was born. Kahn’s peculiar appearance was shaped early in life by a coal fire accident which scarred his face and hands, and a brush with scarlet fever which raised the pitch of his voice and prevented him speaking above a soft squeak. Despite his shy deportment and late start in school, Kahn demonstrated an early talent in both music and the arts, ultimately deciding to focus on architecture when he entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1920. There, Kahn benefitted from the instruction of the leading minds in architecture at the time, including Paul Philippe Cret, a master in the Beaux-Arts tradition. Upon graduation from Penn, Kahn toured the great cities of Europe between 1928 and 1929, studying the ancient and classical monuments which would later be integrated into his cutting edge, modern designs. Although Kahn worked as an architect for his entire adult life, critics consider him something of a late bloomer in the field, contributing little work of significance until the last fifteen years of his life. The Margaret Esherick House, built outside Philadelphia between 1959 and 1961, provides a striking example of how Kahn’s small scale domestic architecture foreshadows the cavernous public institutions he would design later in life. Set in the wooded suburbs of Chestnut Hill, the Esherick House is notable for its strongly geometric rectangular exterior and thick cement exterior walls which measure more than two feet in thickness. Both of these elements, a geometric design executed in thick layers of concrete, would be recurrent themes throughout Kahn’s career, as seen in structures such as the Salk Institute of Biological Sciences in California and the National Capital of Bangladesh. The interior design of the Esherick house emphasizes Kahn’s trademark sense of expansive openness and uses windows and bays, particularly on the rear façade of the house, to provide a portal onto the surrounding environment. Kahn strategically placed screens and ventilation apertures in many of the house’s windows to allow inhabitants to modify the amount of light and fresh air admitted to particular rooms. The overall purpose of such a design is to make the character of the house dependent on the weather and season surrounding it. Often praised by critics as Kahn’s most revolutionary and influential design, the Salk Institute of Biological Sciences in La Jolla, California stands as a testament to its architect’s unique approach to lighting and space. The Salk Institute, which was designed and built between 1959 and 1965, was commissioned by Dr. Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine, to be a modern research facility capable of bridging the gap between the modern arts and sciences. In order to accomplish this lofty philosophical goal, Kahn turned to the classical architectural tradition of ancient Greece and Rome for guidance and inspiration. During his travels in Europe following graduation from the University of Pennsylvania in 1928, Kahn was inspired by the “‘wrapped ruins’” style building, which could be seen in such structures as the courtyard of San Francesco at Assisi and the Roman ruins of Palatine Hill. In these buildings, heavily constructed walls are wrapped around the primary space of the structure in order to create a dramatic sense of light and shadow. Kahn’s sketches from the early 1950s indicate that he was also inspired by the Acropolis of Athens which, like the Salk Institute, stands on a prominent plinth by the ocean, seemingly rising from natural cliffs. With these classical inspirations in mind, Kahn’s original design for the Salk Institute focused on three main concepts of lighting and space. Although each concept was innovative in its own right, none was fully realized in the final design of the Institute and can be seen more clearly in Kahn’s later work. First, Kahn sought to wrap interior spaces in heavy cement “shadow-giving walls,” mimicking the monuments of ancient Greece and Rome. Second, instead of creating a single spacious structure to house the Institute, Kahn envisioned a number of smaller independent structures, or “room-buildings,” to make up the overall plan of the Institute, thus creating a “society of spaces.” Finally, Kahn used a folded, accordion-like plan to combine “served and servant spaces” within the Institute’s overall structure. Kahn’s final design for the Salk Institute includes a laboratory complex consisting of two identical folded plate structures facing a wide central court, which is empty of any landscaping or ornamentation save for the narrow, continuously flowing ravine which bisects the entire design and seemingly vanishes into the horizon. Like the Salk Institute’s combination of classical inspiration and innovative design, the Phillips Exeter Academy Library demonstrates how concepts from early libraries can inspire an original and groundbreaking new structure. On this project, which was created between 1965 and 1972, Kahn’s pioneering and questioning nature is clearly evident. The design for the Exeter Library challenges the traditional program of the library, which typically separates spaces for people from spaces for books. Kahn believed in a dynamic relationship between people and books and sought to reconcile their separate positions within the structure of the library. He also conceived of the library as a sacred space, a temple for housing the priceless treasure contained in books. It is reasonable then that Kahn looked to actual places of worship for inspiration on the project, most notably Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple, the medieval monastery library at Durham, and the cloister of Bramante’s in Rome. In his plans for the Exeter Library, Kahn made certain to allow access of natural lighting to student reading carrels (individual work spaces) in the manner established by medieval monasteries. Viewed from its exterior façade, the Exeter Library comes across as an uninspiring four story brick structure with rectangular bays and corner stair cases. Upon entry however, the true genius of the structure is evident in the spacious, naturally lit interior which allows glimpses into the book stacks through large circular openings in the concrete walls. The three primary spaces of the Exeter Library include reading rooms around the outer edges of the building closest to the outside light, book stacks located far from natural light in the interior of the building, and a top-lit central hall to serve as a gathering place upon entry. Sher-e Bangla Nagar, the National Capital of Bangladesh and a veritable city in its own right, stands as evidence of Louis Kahn’s final and most ambitious design concept. Built over the course of twenty-one years, Sher-e Bangla Nagar ultimately outlived Kahn himself, who died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1974, nearly ten years before the project was completed. If Kahn had lived to see the National Capital to completion however, there is little doubt that he would have been dazzled. The completed National Capital exceeds the definition of a mere building or even project site and includes not only structures to house the National Assembly and Supreme court, but also buildings to house schools, a library, offices, hostels, markets, and gardens. Reaching this impressive result was not without challenges though, and Kahn’s infamous failure to meet deadlines only exacerbated the organizational challenges of building in an impoverished faraway nation to delay the completion of the project even further. In seeking inspiration for this daunting project, Kahn turned to two of the modern architects he admired most and incorporated elements from Bengali culture. From Frank Lloyd Wright, Kahn borrowed the umbrella columns which Wright had used in his Johnson Wax and building, and from Le Corbusier, Kahn used the elliptical roof from the Ronchamp Chapel. After experiencing Bengali culture on his first visit to Dhaka in 1963, Kahn deciding upon using separate buildings to house the National Assembly and Supreme Court, mirroring the concept of independent “room-buildings” which Kahn had developed while working on the Salk Institute. These two government chambers would be housed in a central citadel and joined by a mosque, thus symbolizing the importance of Islam as a unifying force in Bangladesh. In a series of remarks delivered in 1965, Kahn describes, in his singularly poetic style, the need for the Capital to be a place of unity and assembly, “[…] assembly is of a transcendent nature. Men came to assemble to touch the spirit of community, and I felt that this must be expressible. Observing the way of religion in the life of the Pakistani, I thought that a mosque woven into the space fabric of the assembly would reflect this feeling.” Despite the sense of unity conveyed in the Capital, the numerous buildings which make up the project’s design ran the risk of becoming chaotic. Kahn likened the design process of Sher-e Bangla Nagar’s to placing pieces on a chessboard, each piece being both independent and interdependent on its comrades for meaning. The final result at Sher-e Bangla is a structure as massive and complex as it is intricate and starkly beautiful. The main citadel housing the National Assembly, Supreme Court and central mosque stands as a stone and brick fortress constructed of geometric blocks and Kahn’s trademark cylindrical columns, perched atop an artificial lake. The façade of the building is inset with triangular, circular and rectangular bays to allow light into the Capital’s vast gallery spaces. Having weathered many political upheavals during its construction, the National Capital of Bangladesh serves not only as a shrine to Kahn’s architecture but also as a testament to the strength of democratic institutions in this developing nation. After nearly fifty years in the field of modern architecture, Louis Kahn left a legacy of strong professional achievement but enigmatic personal relationships. In the 2004 documentary, My Architect, Louis Kahn’s son Nathaniel, the film’s director, reveals his father’s peculiar domestic life and detachment from family. Kahn carried on long term relationships with not only his wife but two mistresses, and three illegitimate children, all of whom lived within several miles of each other in a suburb of Philadelphia. As a man who traveled frequently and funneled all of his passion into architecture, Kahn left little time or energy for his family members, who nonetheless loved and admired him deeply. Despite his lack of a stable family life, Kahn developed a reputation among his clients and students as an eccentric wise man, a lone genius who inspired many with the geometric poetry of his buildings but was emotionally attached to few. Kahn’s peculiar, nomadic lifestyle ended fittingly with his death by heart attack in a public restroom at New York’s Penn station. Throughout his career in American architecture, Louis Kahn conceptualized buildings from an altogether unique perspective which integrated concepts from traditional architecture into innovative, pioneering designs. Critics have attributed a variety of modern architectural concepts to Kahn’s work, such as the use of independent room-buildings to break up a large structure, continuous rounded facades constructed of brick and concrete, and strongly geometric shapes such as circles, triangles, rectangles and columns. Perhaps Kahn’s greatest legacy though is the high regard he earned from his students and contemporaries in the American architectural community. John Lobell, a student of Kahn’s at the University of Pennsylvania, describes him as a “philosopher-poet as well as an architect,” stating that Kahn repeated himself again and again, speaking of Order for twenty years, continually refining, finding a tighter fit. Embarrassed at his self-repetition, still he was driven to find a more perfect expression until the whole came together and stood gleaming in the sun like a pyramid: a perfect form, new in that it had never been before, but eternal in that its form was inevitable. It is clear from this statement that Kahn refused to be defined solely by his role as an architect. In creating innovative works such as the Esherick House, Salk Institute, Exeter Library and National Capital of Bangladesh, Kahn transcended the bounds of mere architect, becoming instead a groundbreaking style-maker whose designs are mimicked but impossible to duplicate.
John Lobell. Between Silence and Light (Boulder: Shambhala, 1979), pg.114. Louis Kahn, “Remarks,” (1965) qtd. in Alessandra Latour, ed. Louis Kahn: writings, lectures, interviews (New York: Rizzoli, 1991), pg.195
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