- 1. And the challenge of monumenatality
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 bachelors
degree from PennsylvaniaUniversity in 1924. He closely studied
under Paul Philippe Cret, an architect trained under cole des Beaux
Arts. There is possibilities that educational model of cole 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,
Kahnwent 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. Mussollinis foro, Italico 5. DEVELOPEMENT AS AN
ARCHITECT Kahns 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 Corbusiers 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
inforties 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. Kahns 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 60s and led him to clarify a simple
set of type forms based on primary geometry. 8. Oser house
(1940-1942)Eherik house (1959-61) 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 theprimary 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 doesnt change, only the means. Piazza del
Campo,Siena 11. YALE ART GALLERY (1951-1953) . One of his famous
structures and the firstsignificant 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
thebordering street of the campus, the buildings 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 ofsimplicity 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
toevoke 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 tetrahedralspace-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 absentrectangle 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. Sketch by Louis Kahn of thePalazzo Vecchio, No.2, Florence,
Italy 1950, drawn just before he designed the Yale Art Gallery. 17.
The door leads to a series ofopen 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. 18. 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 Kahns 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. 19. 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. Salks 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]. 20. There are three phases in the
design development of theSalk 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. 21. 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 differenttypes 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. 22. These defined activities of
inflexible program tend to concentrate around a flexible program of
an open courtyard space in Kahns design to allow for breathing.
Kahn has reflected such Islamic architecture representations into
the Salk Institute, following Luis Barragn,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. 23. THE
PYRAMID, OBELISK, AND SALK INSTITUTE The body in red, attempts
toreach 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.
24. SALK RESEARCH INSTITUTE26 25. PLANS 26. MEETING
PLACELABORATORIES 27. SALK RESEARCH INSTITUTE La Jolla, California,
AS BUILTSECCIN 29 28. 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. 29. Kahn
also decided toaccentuate 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. 30. 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 reconfigureindividual
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.
31. 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. 32. Louis Kahns
National Assembly Building of Bangladesh in Dhaka is an
extraordinary example of modern architecture being transcribed as a
part of Bengali vernacular architecture. 33. 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. 34. 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 35. 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 Kahns design objectives to optimize spatial
configurations where the supporting programs (offices, hotels for
parliamentary officials, and a restaurant) project out of the
center volume. 36. The entire complex is fabricatedout 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. 37. CENTRAL ASSEMBLY 38. The full panoply of beauxarts
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. 39. The geometric shapes found on the different
faces of the faade 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. 40. 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
facetoward Mecca. Kahn felt strongly that the structures he
designed for this site should not just stand for the political
nature of the National Assemblys 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.
41. Construction was heldup 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. 42. I.I.M.
AHAMDABAD (1962-1974) While Louis Kahn was designing the National
AssemblyBuilding 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.
43. 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 thebuildings and the
subsequent opening and closing of vistas give a humane scale to the
complex. Kahns use of brick had an impact on India as did his
orchestration of a composition of open spaces and buildings. 44.
The large faade 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 Indias harsh
desert climate. Even though the porous, geometric faade 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. 45. For Kahn, the design of
theinstitute 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. Kahns 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. 46. 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 faade extractions as homage to
Indian vernacular architecture. 47. PHILIP EXETER LIBRARY
(1965-1972) The Phillips ExeterAcademy 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. 48. The project to build a new andlarger
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" 49. The school's building committee was tasked with
finding a newarchitect. 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. 50. 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. 51. Its
facade is primarily brickwith 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 52. 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 53. He felt that reading spaces
should be near the books and also to natural light. The seating was
designed acoordingly 54. 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 beand indeed
arestructural, 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. 55. A
circular double staircase builtfrom 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. 56. 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. 57. KIMBELL ART MUSEUM (1966-1972) The Kimbell Art
Museum has been admired, studiedand emulated by architects and
museum specialists ever since it opened 30 years ago 58. PLAN 59.
It is the unique manner in whichLouis Kahn introduced natural light
within the Museum. At the Kimbell, natural light enters the space
through a 2-foot slit at the apex of Kahns 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 60. But then, as the light bounces offthe 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. 61. Komendant
played a key role indesigning 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. 62. RICHARDS MEDICAL LIBRARY
(1957-1962) Subtle combination oflinear and particulate,which also
created external harbours of space around exterior. The geomentry,
use of space and circulation suggest Kahns influence by Wrights
Larkin building. 63. The structural system of precast 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. 64. FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH The
early stage drawings werecalled 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." 65. FISHER HOUSE 66.
ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL PARK 67. -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 68. SURBHI LAHOTI 2010UAR135
JAYESH KHUSHALANI 2010UAR104
