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 larg ...
Image 5 of 46 from gallery of Louis Kahn's Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad Photographed by Laurian Ghinitoiu. Photograph by Laurian Ghinitoiu
Perched atop a ridge in Sonoma County, connected pavilions blur the boundary between inside and out.
Wow, some incredible captures of buildings designed by the great architect Louis Kahn, photographed by Naquib Hossain. In fact Naquib has a small website dedicated to Louis Kahn which he has coined a “Visual Archive”, quite fitting for this particular series. If you’ve not seen it before I’d recommend having a browse here, it’s basically a homage to Louis Kahn and his works through a collection of photographs. Interestingly enough ...
Architecture historian Caroline Maniaque and photographer Cemal Emden revisit Louis Kahn's architecture in a new compendium of his most significant works.
In 1960, Jonas Salk tasked Louis I. Kahn with designing the Salk Institute, a research facility that he envisioned would positively impact humanity
Renowned for the monolithic masonry of buildings from California to Bangladesh, Kahn turned his obsessions – the natural sciences and primary geometries – into wondrous works of architecture
“Louis Kahn... #architecture #arquitectura #drawing #LouisKahn #Kahn”
Image 21 of 46 from gallery of Louis Kahn's Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad Photographed by Laurian Ghinitoiu. Photograph by Laurian Ghinitoiu
Known for his monumental brick and concrete structures, architect Louis Kahn (February 20 1901 – March 17, 1974) began his life in poverty. His family settled in Philadelphia after immigrating from Estonia and could not afford to buy him drawing materials, “so he improvised and sketched with burnt twigs and matches,” notes a Kimbell Art … Continue reading "The Austere Beauty of Louis Kahn’s 1963 Salk Institute for Biological Research, “Arguably the Defining Work of the Greatest American Architect”"
Louis Kahn's Salk Institute in La Jolla, California
Design is form-making in order Form emerges out of a system of construction Growth is a construction – In order is creative force In design is the means – where with what when with how much The nature of space reflects what it wants to be Is the auditorium a Stradivarius or an ear Is the auditorium a creative instrument keyed to Bach or Bartók played by the conductor or is it a conventional hall In the nature of space is the spirit and the will to exist in a certain way Design must follow closely that will Therefore a stripe-painted horse is not a zebra Before a railroad station is a building it wants to be a street it grows out of the needs of the street out of the order of movement A meeting of contours englazed. Through the nature – why Through the order – what Through the design – how A form emerges from the structural elements inherent in the form. A dome is not conceived when questions arise how to build it. Nervi grows an arch Fuller grows a dome Mozart’s compositions are designs They are exercises of order – intuitive Design encourages more designs Designs derive their imagery from order Imagery is the memory – the form Style is an adopted order The same order created the elephant and created man They are different designs Begun from different aspirations Shaped from different circumstances Order does not imply Beauty The same order created the dwarf and Adonis Design is not making beauty Beauty emerges from selection affinities integration love Art is a form-making life in order – psychic Order is intangible It is a level of creative consciousness forever becoming higher in level The higher the order the more diversity in design Order supports integration From what the space wants to be the unfamiliar way may be revealed to the architect. From order he will derive creative force and power of self-criticism to give form to this unfamiliar. Beauty will evolve. Image. Louis Kahn’s unbuilt Hurva Synagogue, as rendered by Kent Larson for the book Unbuilt Masterworks, a collection of digital constructions of Kahn’s proposals (Amazon). American architect Louis I. Kahn left behind a legacy of great buildings: the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California; the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas; and the Indian Institute for Management in Ahmedabad. Yet he also left behind an equally important legacy of designs that were never realized. This exceptional volume unites those unbuilt projects with the most advanced computer-graphics technology—the first fundamentally new tool for studying space since the development of perspective in the Renaissance—to create a beautiful and poignant vision of what might have been. Author Kent Larson has delved deep into Kahn's extensive archives to construct faithful computer models of a series of proposals the architect was not able to build: the U.S. Consulate in Luanda, Angola; the Meeting House of the Salk Institute in La Jolla; the Mikveh Israel Synagogue in Philadelphia; the Memorial to Six Million Jewish Martyrs in New York City; three proposals for the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem; and the Palazzo dei Congressi in Venice. The resulting computer-generated images present striking views of real buildings in real sites. Each detail is exquisitely rendered, from complex concrete textures to subtle interreflections and patterns of sunlight and shadow. Kahn's famous statement—"I thought of wrapping ruins around buildings"—is borne out by the views of his unbuilt works; his rigorous exploration of tactility and sensation, light and form, is equally evident. Complementing the new computer images is extensive archival material—rough preliminary drawings, finely delineated plans, and beautiful travel sketches. Larson also presents fascinating documentation of each project, often including correspondence with the clients that shows not only the deep respect accorded the architect but the complicated circumstances that sometimes made it impossible to bring a design to fruition. Not only a historical study of Kahn's unbuilt works, this volume is in itself an intriguing alternative history of architecture. A stunning act of digital cyber-architecture by architect Larson. Uncannily realistic. —Time Magazine. Kent Larson used virtual reality to produce strikingly lifelike ... pictures. The product is a luminous representation of daylight. —The Chicago Tribune Of applications to which the computer has been put in architecture, none is more intriguing. Startlingly convincing. —The New York Times Book Review Rigorous scholarship, ... an important contribution to the history of architecture in general, and a deeper understanding of Louis Kahn's genius. —Architectural Record, December 2000 The Hurva simulations are astonishing and utterly convincing. —The New York Times, A Spiritual Quest Realized, but Not in Stone, Paul Goldberger, Sunday, Arts and Leisure. The poetry in Larson’s images comes from his artistic interpretation of Kahn. —OPEN: The Electronic Magazine, Redefining Creativity in the Digital Age, Inside Virtual Walls. See also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Louis Kahn Kahn's Hurva Plans Rova Yehudi Unbuilt Ruins Unbuilt Masterworks Hurva Synagogue, 2000-10 "So therefore I thought of the beauty of ruins... of things which nothing lives behind... and so I thought of wrapping ruins around buildings; you might say encasing a building in a ruin so that you look through the wall which has its apertures as if by accident... I felt this would be an answer to the glare problem." -Kahn, interview, Perspecta 7, 1961, 9-18. Louis Kahn was born in Saarama, Estonia in 1901. His family emigrated to the U.S. in 1905. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a thorough grounding the the Beaux Art school of architecture. During the 1920s and 1930s he worked as a draughtsman and, later, as a head designer for several Philadelphia-based firms. In 1925-26 Kahn acted as the Chief of Design for the Sesquincettennial Exhibition. During the Depression, he was active in the design of public assisted housing. Beginning in 1935 Kahn worked with a series of partners, but from 1948 until his death in 1974, Kahn worked alone. From 1947 to 1957 he was Design Critic and Professor of Architecture at Yale University, after which he was Dean at the University of Pennsylvania. Among his many notable buildings are the Salk Institute (La Jolla, CA), the Phillips Exeter Academy Library, the Yale Center for British Art, the Kimbell Art Museum, Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, India, and the National Capital of Bangladesh. Two of his unbuilt designs have also garnered considerable praise: the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial and the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem, Israel. Kahn's architecture is notable for its simple, platonic forms and compositions. Through the use of brick and poured-in place concrete masonry, he developed a contemporary and monumental architecture that maintained a sympathy for the site. While rooted in the International Style, Kahn's architecture was an amalgam of his Beaux Arts education and a personal aesthetic impulse to develop his own architectural forms. Kahn wrote an essay entitled "Monumentality" already in 1944. Considered one of the foremost architects of the late twentieth century, Kahn received the AIA Gold Medal in 1971 and the RIBA Gold Medal in 1972. He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1971. Resources • Reinventing [?] Jerusalem, Documenta, 14.7.11 • Hurva Synagogue: Kahn vs Meltzer?, Documenta, 21.7.2011 • Tradition and Innovation The Nature and Evolution of Art and Architecture as Structures of Consciousness, by Mariano Akerman Counterpoint. For a series of remarkable images relating to memory poetically, while conveying notions such as ruin and reconstruction, see: Painter of Opportune Questions Why? Because "A good question is greater that the most brilliant answer." —Kahn, while teaching.
Louis Kahn, 1962
We check in on the status of nine houses designed by Louis Kahn in the Philadelphia area.
Image 2 of 3 from gallery of The 'Power of Architecture’: Louis Kahn Exhibition. Living Room of the Norman and Doris Fisher House, Hatboro, Pennsylvania, Louis Kahn, 1960-67 / © Grant Mudford
Kahn’s residential work is few and far between, and they’re all found scattered throughout the Philly region.
ENTREGA DÍA 02/03/2013: MAQUETA E 1:75 + MAQUETAS DE DETALLE + EXPOSICIÓN EN CLASE ALUMNOS: DANIEL COSANO JIMÉNEZ Y EDUARDO GAYOSO CANTERO -------------------------------------------------------------- EDIFICIO: GALERÍA DE ARTE DE LA UNIVERSIDAD DE YALE ARQUITECTO: LOUIS KAHN AÑO DE CONSTRUCCIÓN: 1951-1953 LOUIS KAHN: •Nació en Estonia un 20 de febrero de 1901. • Cuatro años más tarde su familia emigró a los Estados Unidos. •Educado en una rigurosa tradición Beaux-Arts. •1950-1951 los pasará en la Academia de Roma desde donde hará diversos viajes por países mediterráneos. •1952-1954 construcción de la Yale Art Gallery. •Docencia en la Escuela de Arquitectura de la Universidad de Yale de 1947 a 1957. •Profesor de Arquitectura en la Escuela de Diseño en la Universidad de Pensilvania de 1957-1974. •Muere en marzo de 1974. LA GALERÍA DE ARTE DE YALE: LA GALERÍA DE ARTE DE YALE: La construcción de este edificio supone un verdadero punto de inflexión el la carrera de Louis Kahn (así como en la arquitectura norteamericana del momento), convirtiéndose en su primera obra munumental. Louis Kahn promoverá una arquitectura que se sale de la doctrina del movimiento moderno que había reinado el panorama de la arquitectura de vanguardia desde principios del siglo XX, liderada por grandes aquitectos como Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier o Mies Van der Rohe. El movimiento moderno se desarrolló en el periodo entre la primera y la segunda guerra mundial, basando su arquitectura en principios funcionalistas y racionalistas. Tras el éxodo de los arquitectos europeos el movimiento emigrará a los EEUU y se consolidará como el movimiento internacional, apegándose menos a principios sociales. Pese a su gran admiración por los grandes como Le Corbusier, Kahn se separará del movimiento moderno sobre todo al no compartir la teoría de que "la forma sigue la función". Este planteamiento dará lugar a que Kahn proyecte edificios en los que prima más la geometría en pos de la arquitectura. Como consecuencia, Kahn diseñará grandes construcciones monumentales, también muy influenciado por su contacto con la arquitectura romana. Sobrecogido por la universalidad y atemporalidad de esas construcciones Kahn buscará en las geometrías puras de los cuerpos euclidianos la clave para la construcción de edificios grandiosos. Su búsqueda de esta monumentalidad queda reflejada con estas palabras suyas: "Un edificio debe comenzar con lo inconmensurable, luego someterse a medios mensurables, cuando se halla en la etapa de diseño, y al final debe ser nuevamente inconmensurable" SITUACIÓN: El edificio se encuentra en New Heaven, Conneticut, USA. El edificio de Kahn se levanta entre 1951 y 1953 ante la necesidad de ampliación de la antigua galería de Yale, un edificio neogítico de 1928. LA GEOMETRÍA: El edificio se compone de dos cuerpos principales ortoédricos, atravesados verticalmente por figuras geométricas puras, como el rectángulo, el círculo o el triángulo equilatero. Axonométrica esquemática Observamos cómo los dos rectángulos principales comparten eje de simetría, y también cómo los cuerpos que atraviesan el mayor de los rectángulos lo hacen en línea con su otro eje. La retícula de la estructura genera rectángulos que en la zona central cumplen proporción aurea. El resto cumple que su base es el doble que su altura. PLANTAS: A continuación se muestran las plantas que hemos desarrollado y en las que se distinguen las distribuciones interiores: FACHADAS: FACHADA NORESTE FACHADA NOROESTE FACHADA NOROESTE Y SURESTE FACHADA SURESTE Como se aprecia en las imágenes las fachadas son de muro cortina en dos de sus lados, y en el tercero (sureste) es de ladrillo. Esto se debe a dos motivos, el primero es para guardar una armonía con el edificio neogótico de la galería antigua y no contrastar demasiado y el segundo motivo se debe a la necesidad de evitar un excesivo soleamiento en su zona sur. De este modo la galería recibe iluminación de norte, más difusa y suave, ideal para la exposición de piezas de arte. En la fachada sureste también aparece un quiebro para permitir la entrada a la ampliación. Al romper esta fachada monolítica y desplazarla aparece un muro cortina. Esta fachada tiene marcadas las líneas de imposta de los forjados con una moldura de piedra caliza, de este modo se nos permite adivinar la dimensión del edificio que encierra ese muro de ladrillo. LA LUZ: La luz es otro de los pilares básicos de la arquitectura de Kahn, sólo con ella es cuando cobran vida y comienzan a hablar esas geometrías puras que componen sus edificios. Ejemplos claros de esos juegos de luz se encuentran en el relieve que adquieren las finas impostas al proyectar sombra sobre el muro de ladrillo, o por ejemplo en la textura que genera el forjado tetraédrico, bien con luz natural o bien con luz artificial. Un elemento clave para la entrada de luz es el lucernario que se plantea coronando la caja de escaleras cilíndrica. La luz atraviesa los bloques de cristal y rebota en un triángulo de gran canto que refleja la geometria triaungular de las escaleras. A continuación se muestran los estudios de soleamiento que hemos realizado en los que se aprecia la incidencia del sol a lo largo de las distintas estaciones del año: INVIERNO PRIMAVERA VERANO OTOÑO Vídeo invierno Vídeo verano MATERIALES: Los principales materiales son el hormigón armado, del que están hechos los cuerpos geométricos que atraviesan la zona central y que contienen las comunicaciones, así como los forjados. Los pavimentos de la zona de comunicaciones y las escaleras están revestidas de granito negro pulido. Los solados de las galerías y otras estancias son de madera. Los cerramientos son o de muro cortina (vidrio y carpintería de acero) o de ladrillo. Los ladrillos quedan vistos desde el interior y generan una textura suave que pasa desapercibida y no destaca frente a las obras de arte. ESTRUCTURA: La estructura es de hormigón armado. Los forjados están construidos generando una trama de tetraedros, generados utilizando un sofisticado sistema de encofrados metálicos recuperables. Los intesticios entre estos tetraedros permiten el paso de las instalaciones, así como la colocación de luminarias y el paso de la ventilación y el aire acondicionado. Con todo ello se consigue que no sea necesario el uso de un falso techo, y así no se rompe la horizontaliadad tan marcada de estos suelos. Al contemplar esta trama desde abajo se puede tener constancia del grosor del suelo (grosor de forjado 75 cm aproximadamente). Casetones metálicos recuperables de forma tetraédrica La dirección de los pórticos va en paralelo al lado más corto del edificio. PLANO DE TECHO REFLEJADO Las escaleras principales se encuentran encerradas dentro de un cuerpo cilíndrico de hormigón armado coronado por un lucernario con un triángulo de hormigón. Los tramos de escalera van describiendo un triangulo equilátero en planta. El granito negro de las escaleras potencia la sensación de profundidad y de "abismo" que se genera desde la entrada de luz en su parte superior hasta su parte más baja en el sótano. Es curiosa la constitución de estas escaleras, pues se componen de dos vigas zancas en las que se recorta en su parte superior el desarrollo del peldañeado. Los peldaños son piezas monolíticas de granito negro pulido que se apoyan sobre estas zancas. Abajo del todo el muro cilindrico de hormigón armado se ha perdido para dejar un espacio más diáfano, sin embargo queda reflejada su proyección sobre el despiece de baldosas del suelo.
The First Unitarian Church of Rochester, designed in 1959 and completed in 1962, is a prime example of Louis Kahn's design sensibilities.
It was recognized for its recent renovations
In 1959, Jonas Salk, the man who had discovered the vaccine for polio, approached acclaimed architect Louis I. Kahn with plans for a groundbreaking new project.
Lucky chances brought together an international couple and a Louis Kahn-designed house.
The Kimbell Art Museum ’s original building, designed by Louis I. Kahn and opened to the public for the first time in 1972 , has beco...
Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974) was the architect of the library (1965-1972) at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire.
