ARCH- 502: Advance topics in Architectural Theory

Prof. Harry F. Mallgrave

Fall 2012, Illinois Institute of Technology

The Wizard of Light: Louis I. Kahn

Surambika Pradhan

Timelessness is what we always strive for as an architect. There is no greater pleasure

for an architect than to see his building speak the vocabulary he intended for it and to

stand the test of time. For Louis I Kahn, the buildings had to be built in the spirit of the

function they were supposed to serve, and the form and structure became an integral

part of the program. The soul of the building was supposed to be reincarnated from a

very similar built form. Although Louis Kahn designed very few buildings, most of them

show clarity in both form and structure, and are highly influential to the study of

architecture. His architectural style is a far cry from the rigid glass boxes that the other

architects were building during the time. He created a poetic environment, both inside

and outside the building, while the structure stood stoic and proud.

Kahn's works are not the kind which you can see pictures of and describe with words on

a piece of paper. His architecture was all about 'feeling the space'. They are to be visited

in person and felt, just like the masterpieces of Gothic architecture. And like the Gothic

buildings which had ethereal structures with natural light in the spaces, Kahn's strategy
for most of his buildings was to get natural light into the spaces. Kahn rejected glass and

went ahead to create masterpieces from masonry and concrete. In Philip Johnson's

words, “Louis Kahn's four or five buildings are better than so many. He worked on the

projects like an artist. He was his own artist. He had symmetry, order, and geometric

clarity.”

Beginnings:

Louis Isadore Kahn was born as Itze-Leib Schumolsky on the 20th of February, 1901, in

Estonia. His father Leopold Kahn was in the military services and after his release, their

family settled down in Saaremaa, an island in the Baltic Sea. Kahn's mother Bertha

Mendelsohn, having been related to German composers, was a gifted musician herself

and Louis inherited these musical talents. Kahn was brought up in a German household

where his mother used to converse about Goethe and Schiller's work. Kahn's father was

good at painting and the paintings he created would become highly influential to the

young Kahn.

Poverty driven, Leopold immigrated to America to find work along with his family and

settled down in Philadelphia. It was there that Kahn was raised and would spend most of

his time.

Although shy by nature, Kahn was recognized for his artistic suite. He attended the

Public Industrial Art School where he won Wanamaker prizes for his artwork. He even

received prizes from the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His artistic
talents and earlier mentioned musical talents came to the rescue of his family's poverty

stricken situation.

As Louis Kahn's musical talents enhanced, he began playing piano and the organ for

money at a silent movie house. During one of his art lessons at Samuel S. Fleisher Art

Memorial, he found a piano and started playing it which eventually garnered him a gift

from Helen Fleisher; a grand piano. Since there was no room in his house for a bed and

a piano, he used to sleep on the piano. This shows that Kahn's priorities were set as a

child, where he would rather have the hard surface of a piano to sleep on rather than

give up on music for a comfortable bed. As he kept growing as a musician, he received a

scholarship for further studies in music, which he declined and instead concentrated on

visual arts. He took a class under William F. Gray, of which Kahn says “and at that point,

two of my colleagues and myself realized only architecture would be my life. How

accidental are our existence and how full of influences by circumstances.” Having taken

a course in Architectural History, Kahn was attracted to architecture, and thus attended

the University of Pennsylvania.

He began his studies at the University of Pennsylvania 1920. There he was taught under

the tutelage of Paul Phillipe Cret, who brought teaching methods of Ecole des Beaux

Arts in Paris to the school. Cret cast a strong influence on Louis Kahn and his

architecture. Other architects who influenced him during that phase were Boullee and

Ledoux.
The Search for Inspiration:

After graduating from University of Pennsylvania in June 1924, Kahn worked in

Philadelphia. He worked at the Office of the City Architect of Philadelphia with John

Mollitor. Around 1927 when architects like Mies Van der Rohe started what was called

the International Style. Russel Hitchcock and Philip Johnson came out with their book on

the International Style as well. European architects started dedicating themselves to

social housing, but Kahn started working on architecture which focused on city planning

that “reinforced and promoted people's feelings of communal identification” in Sarah

Williams Goldhagen's words. Going back to 1925, after a year of draftsmanship, Kahn

was promoted to the chief of design for the buildings of the Sesquicentennial

International Exposition, where Kahn received six large projects.

He started working for William Lee while staying with his parents to save money for a trip

to Europe which happened in 1928. Kahn made a trip to Europe, starting from London,

through the Netherlands, Germany, and Scandinavia. He also visited his hometown of

Saaremaa, where he was very much impressed by the Bishop Castle at Kuresaare.

The monumentality of the classical buildings struck Kahn and changed his whole

perspective on Architecture. He travelled across Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and

Hungary after that, but the most influential and important part of his trip was the five

months he spent in Italy. He made numerous sketches, capturing the materials, spatial

quality, forms, and other elements. He sketched in different mediums like charcoal,
watercolor, and pastel, depicting the elements of the building in the most spectacular of

ways. He finished his journey with Switzerland and Paris. Kahn recorded all of the

classical architecture in his sketches, but there were no sketches of modern architecture

anywhere in his records. After spending a year in Europe, Kahn came back to America in

1929.

This trip was important to his idea of architecture and its elements. He was impressed by

the monumentality of the buildings. In later works of Louis Kahn the notion of

monumentality is evident. Monumentality did not only mean the massiveness of a

structure, but it also meant the building would be timeless, meaning even though his

appearance fades away, the spirit will remain. The timelessness was well achieved by

Kahn by using materials like concrete and masonry extensively. The structure of his

buildings were not hidden, but were very non-pretentious which added to the

timelessness of the buildings. Even the simple geometric forms added a strong point for

standing the test of time. Kahn's buildings portrayed a geometric clarity and the simplicity

is what stood out and became classic. Something which would not have happened with

any of the free forms we see in today’s contemporary architecture. Upon coming back to

America, he started working for architect Paul Cret, who had taught him earlier. Kahn

worked on various projects during this time. His sketches and paintings were exhibited in

the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Around this time he got married to Esther

Israeli, who supported him when the Great Depression struck. During the Depression,

Kahn did not sit down as many would have done, instead his thirst for knowledge made
him organize a research team with other architects. He studied and worked on many

projects during this time and it helped him develop his architectural philosophy.

In 1947, Kahn established his own practice and began teachig at Yale University. He

also taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Pennsylvania University.

He was also a visiting professor at Princeton University. Most of his writings are in fact

lectures given by him during his teaching career of which he inspired many with his

words.

Yale University Art Gallery :

Louis Kahn was commissioned to design the Yale University Art Gallery in 1951. The site

was adjacent to the existing Yale University Art Gallery of 1928. In the words of Carter

Wiseman, “Kahn was to play a major role in Yale's own artistic development.”

The extension was supposed to accommodate Yale's architecture department. This was

the start of Kahn's philosophy in his practice. The plan was simple and there were bold

forms introduced in it, such as the circular stairwell. Reinforced concrete was used

instead of steel frame construction. He also introduced poured-in-place concrete slabs

so that it has three sided pyramidal coffers which accounted for the required loft space.

This idea was not completely his, but he was assisted by Anne Tyng who was a talented
young architect working in Kahn's office who would later become one of Kahn’s many

lovers. She was the only woman in the office at the time and would eventually bear

Kahn's second child, though she would travel to Rome for the birth, as having a child

from an illegitimate relationship was still looked down upon at that time.

The loft space was a breakthrough in accommodating mechanical services while

simultaneously taking care of aesthetics. The shadows created by the coffers added

considerably more aesthetics to the slab than that which a plain surface would have

created. The massiveness of the structure however, was broken up through the use of

intricate and delicate elements like the railings. Also, the curtain wall used here was the

maximum amount of glass to be used in a Louis Kahn building. It was, however, the

space frame structure that really stood out, along with Kahn's brilliant device for

introducing interior daylight; he put in a concrete tower with clerestory windows and had

the sunlight filtered by the triangular beams. Kahn's ideas were evident in this project

and became more profound with his later work.

Jewish Community Center:

The Jewish Community Center was started in 1954, in Trenton, New Jersey. Only a

portion of it was built; the bath house and although a small project, Louis Kahn declared

that he “found himself as an architect” through this project. Here he started putting

geometrical forms together, but with individual identity. It is when he started studying

space and mass, solid and void. He separated the entire program instead of unifying it
into a single mass. Only the rectangular Bath House was built, which was in the form of

a cruciform plan, based on ancient geometry. The square rooms overlap to share

columns, which are hollow because, Kahn believed that “modern architects built with

hollow stones”. He also used rotating squares to give order and proportion to the grid

that underlines the plan.

The Richards Medical Center:

The Richards Medical Center, started in 1957, was where Kahn's vocabulary became

even more defined. The plan had simple squares grouped together. The structure,

instead of being made through the use of hidden steel columns and beams, is a very

non-pretentious masonry load-bearing structure. The plan itself had each square well

organized with position of shafts, stairs, and structure. There was a clear demarcation of

service space, but those spaces were integrated so that their importance would not be

lost. In his paper Form and Design (based on a lecture given in 1960) he mentions the

design of a laboratory. He says “the space does not belong entirely to medicine or the

physical sciences. It belongs to Population.” Even though the program is very specific to

a certain type and degree of science, the design of the building can give space for

interaction between the buildings and its surrounding environment. This sense of

environment is crucial to the research studies. The research studies, in fact any kind of

study, is done while keeping in mind the context, namely the environment. Hence in

Kahn's design, the research space is extended outside to the civic space, thus
interweaving interaction and research spaces to create a fuller environment, where not

only the inhabitants, but also the spaces are exchanging conversations. According to

Kahn there was a necessity to separate the clean air from the exhaust air, hence the

three towers that he designed had their own exhaust shafts. Thus, the program is

organized in such a way that it can “breathe”. The spaces hold their uniqueness in both

quality and position.

Later in the paper he discusses technology. It is here we discover that Kahn did not

despise technology, but saw it more as a tool than a necessity. He saw it as a means to

create the forms which cannot be realized without machines such as cranes.

Silence and Light:

When Louis Kahn was a child, he was fascinated by fire and used to spend hours

watching the camp-wood spit fire into the air. Once he tried to play with the burning

embers, and as you may have guessed, they burnt him and gave him scars, His mother

believed, because of that incident, that he would grow up to be a great man.

In his lecture 'Silence and Light', Kahn speaks about his fascination with light. An empty

building, just finished, always tells you the story of its making, before being engulfed in

servitude. The difference here is the quality of light coming into the spaces, the levels of

brightness, and the light diffusion.

Light is what defines a place; the shadows it creates, the darkness created by the lack of

it, the placement of light and dark, the contrasting and complimenting of each other.
When we put artificial light in a space, it does not give us the different levels of light or

quality. It is controlled and static and so the atmosphere created by it is mundane.

Natural light on the other hand, changes with the time of day and the day of the year; it

changes the atmosphere of a room every second of the day. Kahn believed that natural

light had a mind of its own. For example, take a corridor enclosed on all sides; with

artificial light that corridor will create the same experience all year long. However, by

opening up just a few windows in that same corridor one can create a vastly different

experience in the space. It is the natural light coming into any space that connects it to

the world outside.

The connection to the world outside and its context is very important to the building and

this connection is achieved only by conscious design. We need to have a consciousness

in our design process as architects, for consciousness is what separates the desired

from the needed. Kahn believed that “consciousness is in all life” and hence a building

should have the same degree of consciousness as its surroundings, just for the sake of

“prevalence of order.”

Kahn mentions that “structure is the maker of light”, as for him it is the structure that will

determine how the light will enter and intermix within the space. The punched openings

so typical of a standard wall existed only out of necessity and Kahn called such openings

“rude”. Instead of forcing an opening into a pristine wall, the structure should account for

ways to let the daylight in.

Tribune Review Publishing Company Building:

The Tribune Review Publishing Company Building was one of the first buildings which

showcased the relationship between structure and light. Kahn had started developing

economic and expressive structures and this was one of the first industrial buildings he

designed. Kahn's initial idea for this building was to create a huge column-less space for

the workers. However, the building’s design eventually became a rectangular mass,

consisting of two rectangular workspaces with a service zone in between them. The

structure was of masonry as were the non-load bearing walls. Kahn articulated the

openings to be integrated with the structure, hence the walls ended up having slits in

between them, which ran from floor to ceiling. The space between the columns gave

way for large openings and the same vocabulary was carried through by introducing slits

the size of the columns in the walls below. The larger openings were above the first level

in the double height space, thus creating far less glare within the workspace, although

adequate lighting at the lower level was brought in by the slits as well. The entrance to

the building was created by introducing a niche which was partially open, thus creating a

highly interesting display of shadows. Kahn combined small and large masonry units to

differentiate between the structural and non-structural units which created a unique and

interesting effect on the facade.

First Unitarian Church:

Kahn's design for the First Unitarian Church began with the ancient cruciform shape. It is
a square hall with an ambulatory on all sides. In Kahn's initial proposal he had a grid of

skylights and was heavily influenced by Wright's Unity Temple as well as Le Corbusier's

Ronchamp du Haut. The roof is a series of folded plates with skylights integrated within

them and niches running continuously on the outside which created an interesting

pattern of light and shadows. What is interesting in Kahn's designs are the entrances he

creates for the buildings. Each one creates a grand sense of entry into the buildings and

are not merely a punched opening in one of the walls. Due to the lack of windows at eye

level, Kahn also created towers known as the 'light towers', which had large openings to

let light stream in.

Salk Institute of Biological Studies:

One of the greatest buildings designed by Louis Kahn is the Salk Institute. Unlike the

Richards Medical Center, this building is actually functional and is praised by both

architects and the scientists that inhabit it. The laboratories at the Salk Institute each

have a view of the ocean which was possible, because of the geometry that directly

answers to the site and the ocean. The plan is scattered throughout the site which has

caused Robert McCarter to describe the project as being like an Acropolis, with each

building having a unique backdrop and view, as well as being juxtaposed to the other

buildings on the site. The Institute's walls are left unfinished and unpretentious. In one of

his lectures Kahn notes, “Instead of covering up a problem, we should pull it out and

deal with it.”

The structure is all concrete, but breaks have been given in the openings by introducing

wood which aims to improve the tactile experience of the building alongside the in-situ

concrete. The center court was originally designed to contain trees, but due to

unforeseen circumstances and design decisions it was eventually dropped and thus, the

whole central courtyard is concrete. A break in the concrete was introduced by adding a

water channel that runs the entire length of the courtyard, very much like a thin strip of

an infinity pool. The openings are typical of Louis Kahn's previous designs with most of

them being floor to ceiling slits. Even the interior has a rich tactile experience by

combining unfinished concrete and wood.

Institution:

In his many writings Kahn always speaks about the spirit of architecture and most

importantly the spirit of the building. He uses the example of an institution and talks

about how the idea of a school started under the shade of a tree. As man needed

shelter, rooms were built and over time the school became more authoritative. It was

somewhere in that long process that the spirit of education was eventually lost. These

days, students are less concerned with their education, and more concerned with “just

getting a degree”. There are schools which are said to have great designs, but still do

not inculcate the spirit of education in the students. The uniformity, linear arrangement,

and mundane areas do not help create enthusiasm in the minds of the students. For

Kahn, the original spirit of education, lost so long ago, can be reinstated through deep
and thoughtful designs.

The spirit of the building is what we should seek out in our building designs as architects

and designers. There should be a sense of belongingness to each and every space. If a

person feels that the space is where he is meant to be, then half the work is done. An

architect should never be worried about the budget or the program as typically, the

program is based on a previously used program which caters to spaces that people

needed at that precise moment. Thus, the program should only be a guide as to what

kinds of spaces are expected. That said, one must always aim for the greater purpose,

which is in the connection of the spaces and how one can create spaces that inspire. In

Kahn's opinion, today’s schools are only concerned about their degrees and competing

amongst each other. For Kahn, our schools today have become nothing more than a

marketplace.

Indian Institute of Management:

The Sarabhais first commissioned Balkrishna Doshi to design the Indian Institute of

Management. Doshi had founded the School of Architecture in Ahmedabad around that

same time and felt it would be good exposure for the students if an international architect

could come and speak to them as well as work on a project in the vicinity. Doshi’s

recommendation to the Sarahbhais was Louis Kahn and as such Kahn got the project.

The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) was a residential business school wherein the

students and teachers lived on campus and worked together, thus reinforcing Kahn's
idea of a monastic enclave. Kahn described his initial concepts:

“The plan comes from my feelings of a monastery... The unity of the

teaching building, dormitories, and teacher's houses- each in its own

nature yet near each other... The fullness of light, protected, the fullness

of air, so welcome, are always present as the basis for architectural

shapes”

Kahn's love of geometric shapes is seen in the plan, arranged in a monastic way on their

diagonal and oriented as a response to the climate. The arrangement was done in a way

that the spaces are shaded from the sun and ventilated by the breeze. The main building

is a square with a cruciform inside and we can see Kahn's typically forms and openings

getting bolder. He had the walls to keep out the sun, but had strategically placed

openings for ventilation. Apart from the influence of European architecture, one can see

the influence of ancient Indian architecture with the courtyards between dormitories,

helping with the ventilation. The windows are set into niches to shade from the harsh

Indian sun and the walls are exposed masonry, as are the arches, while the stairs and

ceilings are exposed concrete.

Looking inside the building, the classrooms are organized in such a way where there is

room for interaction with the students. The interior is open without too many doors

transitioning between spaces, but instead with arches. The monumentality is intact both

inside and outside the building. The integration of circular openings in the outer walls

was inspired by Piranesi's section of Ponte Fabrizio, Rome, 1756.

Kahn had always wanted to design a city and unfortunately his plans for Philadelphia

were rejected and those created by Edmund Bacon were chosen over his. To the

authorities the plans seemed surreal and thus, unfeasible. Kahn wanted people to leave

their cars outside of the city and walk inside the city. It seems like a lot of work, but with

today's energy crisis it seems like a legitimate design and appears to indicate that Louis

Kahn was thinking well ahead of his time. With IIM, Kahn was able to fulfill his dreams

and design a miniature city.

Bangladesh National Capital Building:

The Capital Building of Bangladesh was Kahn's greatest work in many people's opinion.

After rejecting designs by Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto, the commission of the project

went to Louis Kahn. At the time Bangladesh was one of the poorest countries in the

world and the building designed by Louis Kahn seemed like a miraculous blessing to the

country. When Louis Kahn first visited the site there was nothing on it except flooded

paddy fields, which Kahn managed to transform into a world famous piece of

architecture. He turned the paddy fields into pools surrounding the building, which in

turn, doubled the monumentality of the building. Although the plan of the national

building does not appear to be designed with Kahn’s typical geometric shapes, as one

begins to break down the spaces, the geometric shapes begin to emerge. Kahn first

started by placing a mosque with the four typical minarets into the plan. He then went on

to design a central prayer hall with offices surrounding it. The design was a concrete
structure joined together in horizontal bands. The openings were, however, a mix of

rectangular, triangular, and circular shapes. While people work individually in the offices,

they come together for their prayers in the prayer halls. Even the public entry is placed

so that anyone entering the building must pass through the building to get to the prayer

hall.

Louis Kahn ended up going bankrupt due to this project. Unfortunately, the Bangladesh

government could not afford to pay him for the project, but Kahn's dedication and

determination forced him to continue with the project.

Phillips Exeter Academy Library:

For Louis Kahn, a library possessed the same spirit as an institution; it was a place of

aspiration, ideas, and education. He believed that when people purchased a book, they

just paid for the price of printing and not the knowledge within. His reverence for the

same is evident in his design of the Phillip Exeter Academy Library, one of the most

successful projects designed by Kahn.

The library is comprised of a square plan on the ground floor and has a large square

opening in the floors above. The entrance is located at the chamfered corners and is

also recessed back. The entrance to the actual library space is along one of the sides

via a large circular staircase. The view of the interior of the building changes at every

level. The central mass of the wall has large circular openings in order to remove the

massiveness of the concrete structure. Through the openings, one is confronted with the
stacks of books which are placed on the interior side of the floor plates, closest to the

large square-like atrium. The study carrels are then organized along the exterior walls so

they can have natural light. The study carrels were directly inspired from the upper

reading cloister that overlooked the central courtyard at Bramante's S. Maria della Pace.

The primary structure consists of central columns and the square shafts around the

square opening. The columns are then braced on the top by cross beams, which create

an unusual game of light and shadows throughout the course of the day. On the ground

floor, there are arcades going around the building, justifying Kahn's interactive spaces,

wherein the civic space is extended into the building so that both the spaces are not

alien from each other. The openings on the outer wall are proportioned according to the

golden section, just like the floor. On the upper floors these openings are broken down

into three rectangles, one overhead to light up the space and two within the human cone

of vision. Unlike many other Kahn buildings, the openings are of a similar shape.

The strangest thing about the library is the placement of the piano on the ground floor

lobby. Even though a library is a quiet place, one can imagine the sound of the piano,

the presence of which, along with the play of light and shadows, inspires the human

mind.

About Form and Order:

Kahn has also talked about knowledge and feelings saying that we often confuse

knowledge with feelings. Most of the time we do not need knowledge, but feelings in
order to like or dislike something. When we begin designing, it is primarily our feelings

which determine what kind of a space we are going to create. The way one feels in a

space affects our mental stability, performance, ability, and sanity, as feelings are

immeasurable and knowledge is what gives measure to it. It is our feelings which start

the process of creation and that is true for everyone. By form, Kahn does not mean the

physical form. but a master system which integrates all other systems that govern the

design of the building. Order is how the process works and what separates one space

from another.

Kimball Art Museum:

The Kimball Art Museum is perhaps the most published of Kahn's works and the best

example of combining complex structures to create a simple space with extraordinary

features of light. The museum consists of large running shells placed next to each other

with the end left as a continuous open shell.

These vaults have exhibition spaces on the upper floors in order to get as much natural

light as possible. The natural light comes into the building through an opening at the top

of the shell, via a brilliant design formulated by Kahn. The light coming through these

shafts are diffused and not harsh enough to affect the expensive paintings or create

heavy glare when viewing them. The exhibition spaces are also finished with travertine

both on the inside and the outside.

The remarkable feature about the project was its relation to the landscape around it.
Harriet Pattinson, one of Kahn's lovers was working side by side on this project as the

landscape architect and brought a sense of environment to the project.

The staircases and the extra display walls go where the two vaults meet together,

leaving the lit spaces open.

Yale Center for British Art:

Chronologically, the Yale Center of British Art, was the last project started by Louis Kahn

before he suddenly died of a heart attack at Penn station and lay unrecognized for three

days in the city morgue. This particular building is actually located across the street from

the Yale University Art Gallery, which was designed by Kahn years earlier. Though it

spoke almost the same vocabulary as the Art Gallery, with the coffers in the ceiling, this

Kahn project, like all the rest, had something unique to it. The plan was a simple

rectangle with a circular vault for the stairs that run square inside it. The coffers however,

are not solid and are comprised of circular vaults that allow light into the space. Kahn

combined concrete, travertine, and oak wood in the interior, thus accounting for a rich

tactile experience. The outer wall is a combination of masonry and glass panel, much

like his building across the street.

For Louis Kahn, architecture was never a set of rules and regulations but an art, which

was not surreal like in paintings. An architect always works like an artist, but must keep

in mind the feasibility and the physics. Louis Kahn worked on each project as an artist

and hence all his work became masterpieces. Where there were no rules, he invented
his own. He played with light and shadow, form and order, and the subtle nuances

between them. He may have produced very few buildings in his time, but it was the

quality of his building that surpassed those of his peers at the time. He defied the

architecture of his time, and in doing so, created his own unique style. His buildings are

not just organized spaces, but carefully constructed pieces of art, a literal poetry of

architecture that all of us can find reasonable and very approachable.

Bibliography:

Louis I. Kahn Form and Design

Louis I. Kahn Silence and Architecture

Louis I. Kahn Order

Leslie, Thomas .Louis I.Kahn: Building Art, Building Science.

McCarter, Robert .Louis I. Kahn. Phaidon Press Ltd.

Wiseman, Carter .Louis I. Kahn: Beyond Time and Style: A Life in Architecture.

David B. Brownlee, David G. De Long Louis I. Kahn : in the realm of architecture

Sarah Williams Goldhagen Louis Kahn's Situated Modernism

Romaldo Giurgola, Jaimini Mehta Louis I. Kahn

Nathaniel Kahn My Architect