2. 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.
3. 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.
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.
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.
4. 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.
After working in various capacities for
several firms in Philadelphia, he founded
his own atelier in 1935. While continuing his
private practice, he served as a design critic
and professor of architecture at Yale School
of Architecture from 1947 to 1957.
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
5. 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 Beauxarts 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.
6. 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-thebasics 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.
7. 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.
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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
Piazza del Campo,Siena
11. 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
12. 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.
13. PLAN
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.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16.
17. Sketch by Louis Kahn of the
Palazzo Vecchio, No.2, Florence,
Italy 1950, drawn just before he
designed the Yale Art Gallery.
18. The door leads to a series of
open loft spaces on the first
floor, which flow horizontally
until the space is broken by
core circulation elements,
including the main stair,
elevator and mechanical core.
The stair was contained in a
cylindrical volume and rose
through a series of triangular
change in direction, hinting
on the distinction of function
and circulation. This building
is also known for the
structural innovations.
19. 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.
20.
21. 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].
22. 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.
23. 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.”
24. 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.
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.”
25. THE PYRAMID, OBELISK, AND SALK INSTITUTE
The body in red, attempts to
reach the divine by verticality
in the pyramid and obelisk;
whereas the body at Salk
Institute reaches the divine
directly in sigh horizontally
THE BODY The body marries
the sky (divine) and the earth
at the horizon, while the
study block on either side
frames the direction towards
the sky. The Salk Institute
manages allow you to focus
on the horizon when you are
on the courtyard.
30. MATERIAL
In determining the mix to be used,
which is the major material for the
laboratory complex, Kahn
researched the components used
in roman pozzolana, in order to
achieve similar reddish hue.
Concrete was chosen as the
material for the exterior facade of
the towers, the Living and
Meeting places, and slate was
chosen for the courtyard to further
emphasize the simplicity of the
design. Later, the material was
eliminated because of cost and
replaced with travertine, which
has similar symbolic connections.
The travertine has not lasted as
long as slate may have over time
because of its relative softness.
31. Kahn also decided to
accentuate the joints between
the panels instead of hiding
them by chamfering the
edges to produce a V-shaped
groove at these points along
the wall surface The conical
holes left by the form ties
were also not patched, so
their spacing were carefully
placed, and they were filled
by a lead plug, hammered
tightly to prevent corrosion of
the steel ties.
32. The need for mechanical services
(air ducts, pipes, etc.) was so
extensive that Kahn decided to
create a separate service floor for
them above each laboratory floor to
make it easier to reconfigure
individual laboratories in the future
without disrupting neighbouring
spaces.
He also designed each laboratory
floor to be entirely free of internal
support columns, making
laboratory configuration easier.
Komendant engineered
the Vierendeel trusses that make
this arrangement possible.
These pre-stressed concrete trusses
are about 62 feet (19 m) long,
spanning the full width of each
floor and extending from the
bottom of each service floor to the
top. They are supported by steel
cables embedded in the concrete in
a curve.
33.
34. 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.
35. 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.
36. In August 1963, Kahn received a telegram
from the Pakistani department of public
works asking him if he was interested in
a commission to build the new National
Assembly building in Dhaka, East
Pakistan. Kahn accepted the
commission. He was given a tour of the
thousand-acre site of open farmland and
was also given the design program from
the Pakistani government.
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 highincome residential areas.
37. With this project, Kahn
first focused on the
National Assembly
Building itself, which was
to include a twohundred-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
38. PLAN
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.
39. 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.
41. The full panoply of beaux
arts planning rhetorical
devices- primary and
secondary axes, sense of
climax, variation in size
and shape-was employed
to reinforce the sense that
this building is the head of
the social order. Similarly,
le Corbusier used grand
axes for the parliament
building in Chandigarh.
42. The geometric shapes found on the
different faces of the façade add a
dramatic impact to the overall
composition of the building.
The geometric shapes are
abstracted forms found in
traditional Bangali culture that are
meant to create a marriage of old
and new cultural identities, as well
as, serve as light wells and a natural
environmental control system for
the interior.
For Kahn, light was an important
aspect in the design of a
building, not just as a way to
illuminate a space, but rather
conceptualizing light as a creator of
space.
43. 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 longtime colleague August Komendant,
structural engineer.
44. 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.
45. I.I.M. AHAMDABAD
(1962-1974)
While Louis Kahn was designing the National Assembly
Building in Bangladesh in 1962, he was approached by an
admiring Indian architect, Balkrishna Doshi, to design the 60 acre
campus for the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmadabad,
India.
46. 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.
The brick wall rise unrelieved. They
shed their load in great arches –
segmental, relieving or full.
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.
47. 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.
48. 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.
49. 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.
50.
51. PHILIP EXETER LIBRARY
(1965-1972)
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.
52. 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"
53. 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.
54. Plan
The library has an almost cubical
shape: each of its four sides is 111 feet
(33 m) wide and 80 feet (24 m) tall.
It is constructed in three concentric
areas (Kahn called them
"doughnuts")
The early designs included some
items that were eventually rejected,
such as a roof garden and two
exterior towers with stairs that were
open to the weather. They were
removed from the plans when the
building committee reminded Kahn
that neither of those features would
be practical in New England
winters.
55. 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
56. 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
57.
He felt that reading spaces should be
near the books and also to natural light.
The seating was designed acoordingly
58. At the top of the atrium,
two massive concrete cross
beams diffuse the light
entering from
the clerestory windows.
Carter Wiseman: While they appear to be—and indeed are—structural, they are far deeper than
necessary; their no-less-important role was to diffuse the sunlight coming in from the surrounding
clerestory windows and reflect it down into the atrium.
Sarah Goldhagen The concrete X-shaped cross below the sky lit ceiling at the Exeter Library is
grossly exaggerated for dramatic effect.
Vincent Scully argues that Kahn followed this practice in several of his buildings, including this
library.
59. A circular double staircase built
from concrete and faced
with travertine greets the visitor
upon entry into the library. At
the top of the stairs the visitor
enters a dramatic central hall
with enormous circular
openings that reveal several
floors of book stacks. At the top
of the atrium, two massive
concrete cross beams diffuse the
light entering from
the clerestory windows. he felt
that reading spaces should be
near the books and also to
natural light.
60. David Rineheart, who worked as an architect for Kahn,
said, "For Lou, every building was a temple. Salk was a
temple for science. Dhaka was a temple for government.
Exeter was a temple for learning.
61. 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
63. 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, perforatedaluminium “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
64.
65. 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.
66. Komendant played a key role in
designing curved concrete
gallery roof shells that do not
require interior support, thereby
minimizing obstruction on the
gallery floors.
Before Komendant's arrival on
the project, Kahn had been
designing the curved gallery
roofs as vaults supported by a
series of columns along their
edges. Komendant recognized
that the gallery roofs should be
engineered not as true vaults but
as vault-shaped beams that
would require support only at
their four corners.
67.
68. RICHARDS MEDICAL LIBRARY
(1957-1962)
Subtle combination of
linear and
particulate,which also
created external
harbours of space
around exterior.
The geomentry, use of
space and circulation
suggest Kahn’s influence
by Wright’s Larkin
building.
69. 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
functionability.
70. FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH
The early stage drawings were
called as ‘form’ drawings by
Louis I Kahn.
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."
75. -W.J.CURTIS
Extracts from the works of
-INCENT SCULLY: LOUIS I KAHN AND THE RUINS
OF ROME
-ROBERT McCARTER:LOIUS I KAHN
-CARTER WISEMAN: BEYOND TIME AND STYLE
-KATHELEEN JAMES-CHOKRAWORTY
-SARAH GOLDHAGEN
-James Steele: Architecture in detail
-Daid Brownlee : Louis I kahn in the realm of architecture
-www.archdaily.com
