With designs that combined timeless forms and modern techniques,
Louis Kahn became known as one of the leading American architects of the 20th
century.
Synopsis
Louis Kahn was born in Pärnu, Estonia,
on February 20, 1901. His family emigrated to the United States when Kahn was a
child; he later studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and
opened his own firm in 1935. His major works include the Yale University Art
Gallery, the Kimbell Art Museum and the capitol complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Kahn died in New York City on March 17, 1974.
Early
Years and Education
Louis Kahn was born Itze-Leib
Schmuilowsky in Pärnu, Estonia, on February 20, 1901. His Jewish parents, Leib
Schmuilowsky and Beila-Rebecka Mendelowitsch, soon decided to emigrate from
Estonia. Leib traveled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1904; his family
followed two years later.
As part of their assimilation, the
family adopted the last name of Kahn in 1912. Leib and Beila-Rebecka took the
names of Leopold and Bertha, and their son became Louis Isadore Kahn.
Kahn attended Philadephia’s Central
High School and the Public Industrial Art School. He later studied architecture
at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was mentored by the French-born
architect Paul Cret. Kahn received his degree in architecture in 1924.
Career
Beginnings
After working as a chief of design
for Philadelphia’s 1926 Sesquicentennial buildings, Kahn traveled throughout
Europe in 1928-29. Returning home, he married Esther Israeli in 1930, and found
work at various Philadelphia-based architectural firms.
Kahn opened his own architectural
practice in 1935. From the start, he was interested in architecture’s role in
social change. He created housing for factory workers during World War II, and
later in the 1940s worked on buildings for labor unions. After the war, Kahn
also designed several private homes in the Pennsylvania suburbs, working in a
modernist style.
Kahn began teaching architecture at
Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1947. It was the start of an
influential teaching career—he would remain at Yale for ten years before
becoming a professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
"An architect is part of the
treasury of architecture in which the Parthenon belongs, the Pantheon belongs,
in which the great lyceums during the Renaissance belong. All these things
belong to architecture and make it richer."
In 1950-51, Kahn was the architect
in residence at the American Academy in Rome. During this period, he also was
able to visit Greece and Egypt. Inspired by the ancient ruins and Renaissance
buildings he had seen, Kahn would use classical architecture’s solid forms and
durable materials in his own work, combining these timeless forms with modern
techniques.
Major
Works and Projects
Kahn’s first major architectural
project was the Yale University Art Gallery, completed in 1953. His other
significant projects of the 1950s and '60s include the Richards Medical
Research Building for the University of Pennsylvania (1957-65), the Salk
Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California (1959-65), and a
library for New Hampshire's Phillips Exeter Academy (1965-72).
The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort
Worth, Texas (1966-72) is considered one of Kahn's masterpieces. Many of its
galleries are massive vaulted spaces with ceiling slits that let in natural
light.
"Architecture is the thoughtful
making of spaces. It is the creating of spaces that evoke a feeling of
appropriate use."
Kahn also worked internationally,
and was commissioned to design two major projects on the Indian subcontinent:
the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad (1962-74) and the national
capital of Bangladesh (1962-83). The National Assembly in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is
one of Kahn's most admired works.
Personal
Life
At the age of 73, Kahn died of a
heart attack on March 17, 1974, in New York City’s Pennsylvania Station. He was
on his way home from Ahmedabad, India.
Kahn's death revealed his
complicated personal life: In addition to the daughter, Sue Ann, he shared with
wife Esther, Kahn had a daughter, Alexandra, with his architectural associate
Anne Tyng, as well as a son, Nathaniel, with landscape architect Harriet
Pattison. The secrets and complexities of this situation were examined in the
2003 documentary film My Architect, directed by Nathaniel Kahn.
· A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go
through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be
unmeasurable.
· Design is not making beauty, beauty emerges from selection,
affinities, integration, love.
· Architecture is the reaching out for the truth.
Source: http://www.biography.com/people/louis-kahn-37884#synopsis
