Louis I. Kahn

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Louis Isadore Kahn (born February 20 July / March 5,  1901 greg. In Kuressaare , Estonia Governorate , Russian Empire ; † March 17, 1974 in New York ) was an American architect , urban planner and university professor. His main focus was on public buildings.

Life

Kahn was born on the Estonian island of Saaremaa . His father Leopold Kahn emigrated to the USA in 1904, and in 1906 his mother Bertha traveled with Louis and his siblings. Kahn grew up in Philadelphia and was granted US citizenship in 1915. From 1920 to 1924 he studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania . A trip to Europe followed, which also took him to Carcassonne in France . 1925-26 he was chief designer of the world exhibition in Philadelphia as an employee of the building authority. He then worked in the office of Paul P. Cret , a well-known architect at the time, and traveled to Europe again. In 1930 he married Esther Virginia Israeli, and their daughter Sue Ann was born ten years later. In 1934 he opened his own office and began building housing developments. From 1947 he taught at Yale , from 1957 he taught at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In 1954 his daughter Alexandra was born, the mother was Kahn's colleague Anne Tyng . Another employee, Harriet Pattison, gave birth to son Nathaniel in 1963.

After returning from a trip to India, Louis Kahn died of a heart attack in the toilet at Penn Station in Manhattan . Since he had insufficient papers and was completely neglected, he could only be identified after three days.

Moshe Safdie and Robert Venturi are among his most famous students . In his honor there is a memorial park in Philadelphia on 11th Street and Pine Street. Coordinates: 39 ° 56 '42.4 "  N , 75 ° 9' 36.7"  W.

Education and professional career

From 1912 to 1920 Kahn attended Central High School and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He studied architecture from 1920 to 24 at the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Architecture . The building department under the direction of John Molitor was his first professional position from 1925 to 1926, where Kahn became design chief for the centenary (of American independence). From 1928 to 1929 he traveled to Europe, in 1930 he began working in the office of Paul P. Cret, then in the office of Zanzinger, Borie & Medary. In 1932 he became the organizer and head of the Architectural Research Group : Thirty unemployed architects and engineers examined Philadelphia's housing conditions, planned housing, developed studies on urban planning and slum redevelopment and researched new construction methods. Soon after, he enrolled in the American Institute of Architects and became a freelance architect. His buildings from this period did not achieve national recognition, but in 1937 he became a consultant architect at the Philadelphia Housing Authority, in 1939 a consultant architect at the US Housing Authority and from 1946 to 1952 a consultant architect for the Philadelphia Urban Planning Commission. In 1941 he joined George Howe's architectural office as a partner , and later that year Oscar Stonorov joined as a third partner. Howe resigned from the office a year later, and the Stonorov and Kahn architectural association continued until 1947 . His stay at the American Academy in Rome in 1950 and 1951 marked a turning point in his career, as Vincent J. Scully wrote in his book Louis I. Kahn in 1962: “Ten years ago - he was over 50 at the time - Louis I . Kahn built almost nothing yet […]. Within ten years, however, the 'could have been' has become an 'has' and Kahn's achievements in just one decade undeniably place him in the top ranks of living architects. ”In the years that followed, up to his death, he realized one Series of major public works. He continued to work as a university lecturer and gave numerous lectures, around 1959 the final lecture at the 10th CIAM Congress in Otterlo, Netherlands, and the 1962 annual lecture at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London. He always remained connected to his hometown Philadelphia and was involved in urban planning issues; so he was in 1961 consulting architect of the city planning commission in Philadelphia and in 1968 a member of the art commission of Philadelphia.

Pronunciation of the name

In contrast to Louis Sullivan , Louis Kahn apparently left no written record of how his first name should be pronounced. While Sullivan clearly preferred the French pronunciation, Kahn only mentions that he introduced himself with 'Lou' and that he was spoken to by those around him. He also signed his drawings and letters with 'Lou'. Although the French pronunciation 'Louie' is occasionally used among Kahn researchers, Kahn's use of the pet form 'Lou' suggests a pronunciation that is adapted to the American way of speaking. The fact that the name Louis Isadore Kahn already represents an Americanization of his original name Leise-Itze Schmulowsky suggests that he preferred the American pronunciation of his name.

Academic career

  • 1947–57 professor of architecture at Yale University , senior professor of design criticism .
  • 1956 Professor of the AF Bennis Foundation at the School of Architecture and Planning, MIT
  • 1957 Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
  • 1960 Lectures at Yale, Harvard, California, Houston, North Carolina and Tulane University.
  • 1962 lectures in Philadelphia, Ontario and Chicago.
  • 1966 holder of the Paul Philippe Cret Chair in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
  • 1971 Professor Emeritus of the Paul Philippe Cret Chair at the University of Pennsylvania.

Honorary degrees, memberships, faculty affiliation

+ 1964 Elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Buildings (selection)

Salk Institute, La Jolla, California (1959–65)
Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban, Dhaka, Bangladesh (1962–73)
Phillip Exeter Academy Library and Dining Room, Exeter, New Hampshire (1965–72)

Projects (selection)

Important awards

Five of its buildings have been with the Twenty-five Year Award of the American Institute of Architects awarded.

See also

literature

Books

  • Jack Perry Brown: Louis I. Kahn: a Bibliography. Garland, New York 1987. ISBN 0-8240-9918-4
  • Urs Büttiker: Louis I. Kahn. Light and space. Birkhäuser Verlag AG, 1989, ISBN 3-7643-2297-7 , ISBN 978-3-7643-2297-7
  • Gloria W. Close: Louis I. Kahn Bibliography. In: Judith Vance (Ed.): Architectural Series: Bibliography A-190. Vance Bibliographies, Monticello IL 1980. ISSN  0194-1356
  • Klaus-Peter guest: Louis I. Kahn. The complete work. DVA, Stuttgart 2001. ISBN 978-3-421-03294-2
  • Sarah Williams Goldhagen: Louis Kahn's situated modernism . New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2001
  • August E. Komendant : 18 years with Architect Louis I. Kahn. Aloray, 1975
  • Michael Merrill: Louis Kahn: Drawing to Find Out. Lars Müller Publishers, Zurich 2010. ISBN 978-3-03-778221-7
  • Michael Merrill: Louis Kahn: On the Thoughful Making of Spaces. Lars Müller Publishers, Zurich 2010. ISBN 978-3-03778-220-0
  • Heinz Ronner, Sharad Jhaveri, Alessandro Vasella: Louis I. Kahn - Complete Work 1935-74. ETH Zurich, 1977; Birkhäuser, Basel, Stuttgart, 1977 (1st edition). ISBN 3-7643-0900-8 ; Westview Press, Boulder 1977 (1st ed.). ISBN 0-89158-648-2 ; Birkhäuser, Basel, Boston 1987 (2nd extended edition). ISBN 3-7643-1347-1 (Basel) and ISBN 0-8176-1347-1 (Boston)
  • Joseph Rosa: Louis I. Kahn 1901–1974. The lighted room. Taschen, Cologne 2006. ISBN 3-8228-2873-4
  • Alessandro Vassella: Louis I. Kahn - Silence and Light. 1 audio CD. Park Books, Zurich 2013. ISBN 978-3-906027-18-0

Essays

  • Michael Merrill: The Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial by Louis Kahn. In: Bauwelt, 2012/17, pp. 6–10.
  • Luigi Monzo: The Park of the Four Freedoms. In: stone. Zeitschrift für Naturstein, 131, May 2014, pp. 14–18.
  • David Quick, Christopher Birr, Markus Breitschmid (Eds.): Dhaka National Assembly - Louis I. Kahn . (= Architecture History Case Studies Series, 11th Corporis Publisher for Architecture, Art, and Photography) Lulu.com, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9893936-1-4

Movie

  • My Architect - A Son's Journey. A film by Nathaniel Kahn (2003 - Oscar nomination)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Film start biography Louis Kahn
  2. ↑ LOUIS KAHN Architect (1901-1974) side of the Design Museum London , spotted 19 October 2010
  3. ↑ Quoted from: Joseph Rosa: Louis I. Kahn 1901-1974. The lighted room. P. 13.
  4. ↑ nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians "K" / Kahn, Louis I. ANA 1965 ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed June 29, 2015) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nationalacademy.org
  5. ↑ cf. Michael Merrill: The Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial by Louis Kahn. In: Bauwelt, 2012/17, pp. 6–10 and Luigi Monzo: The Park of the Four Freedoms. In: STEIN: Zeitschrift für Naturstein, 131.2014 / 5 (May), pp. 14-18.

Web links

Commons : Louis Kahn  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Kahn, Louis I.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kahn, Louis Isadore
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American architect and city planner
DATE OF BIRTH March 5, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Kuressaare , Estonia Governorate , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1974
Place of death new York