Louis Kahn Architect

8 Apr 2016
Fine Arts Center, School, and Performing Arts Theater, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA
Date built: 1959-73

photo courtesy wikimedia commons
Louis Kahn’s Fine Arts Center, School, and Performing Arts Theater in Indiana – 8 Apr 2016
Regeneration architect sought.

Phillips Exeter Academy Library, Exeter, New Hampshire, USA
Date built: 1967-72

photo by Rohmer at en.wikipedia
Phillips Exeter Academy Library
This building has none of the landscape-integrating prairie horizontals of Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses but instead hits you across well-maintained landscape as a massive squat pile of bricks.

Louis Kahn – Key Projects

Major Developments by Louis Kahn Architect, alphabetical:

Erdman Hall Dormitories & Cafeteria, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA
Dates built: 1960-65

Esherick House, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania
Dates built: 1959-61

Exeter Library, Exeter, New Hampshire, USA
Dates built: 1967-72

First Unitarian Church, Rochester, New York, USA
Dates built: 1959-67

Institute of Public Administration, Ahmedabad, India
Date built: 1963

Kimbell Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, USA
1967-72

National Assembly, Dacca, Bangladesh
1962-74
The decision to build the National Assembly of Bangladesh in Dhaka city was originally made in 1959. The administrators of martial law planned to build the current Sangsad Bhavan as a second seat of parliament of Pakistan on the proposed zone as the second capital, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar.
Kahn was originally selected to design the compound of the National Assembly. He was not charged directly, but the project was put to the public to submit preliminary ideas for the complex and in March 1962 he was awarded the project officially.
source: National Assembly of Bangladesh

Norman Fisher House, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1960

Richards Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1957-61

Salk Institute, La Jolla, California, USA
1959-66

photo provided by architect Alan Dunlop
Salk Institute, La Jolla – Salk Institute for Biological Studies Conference

In 1957, Jonas Salk, developer of the first safe and effective polio vaccine, began his quest to “create a collaborative environment where researchers could explore the basic principles of life and contemplate the wider implications of their discoveries for the future of humanity.”
Gifted with 27 acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean by the City of San Diego in 1960, Salk partnered with Kahn to design such a research center. He summarized his aesthetic objectives by telling the architect to “create a facility worthy of a visit by Picasso.”
source: Salk Institute

Trenton Bath House, Trenton, New Jersey, USA
1954-59

Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
1969-74

Yale University Art Center, New Haven, Connecticut
1951-53/54

Louis Kahn Residential Architecture – Oct 2016

Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Louis Kahn Architect Practice Information

Louis I. Kahn
1901-74
Yale University Art Gallery was his first major project

Louis Isadore Kahn – Jewish architect born in Saaremaa, Russia (now Estonia).
Louis Kahn was born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky in Kuressaare. His family emigrated to the USA in 1905. He lived and worked in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Exeter Library : Brief Review of the Exeter Library building

Teaching

Professor of Architecture: Yale University 1947-57
Dean, Professor of Architecture: University of Pennsylvania 1957-

Education

University of Pennsylvania: Masters Degree 1924

Pupils included Robert Venturi and Moshe Safdie

The architect died in Pennsylvania Station in New York:
The architect died at Penn Station in March 17, 1974, when his briefcase was opened it contained sketches of Four Freedoms Park, on Roosevelt Island in New York’s East River.
(source: http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/design/articles/2015/march/17/what-was-louis-kahn-working-on-the-day-he-died/)

Nathaniel Kahn film released in 2003 called My Architect: A Son’s Journey,

Louis Kahn Memorial Park : Pine Sreet, Philadelphia

Modern Architects

Louis Kahn Architect – article posted Aug 2016

American Architects