Louis Kahn and the X Building

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Giacomo Pelizzari, UoM UID: 7609116, MMU UID: 10983407.

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Louis Kahn

and

the

Xbuilding.


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Brief biography.

Louis Isadore Kahn(born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky) was born in 1901, Osel,Estonia. Kahn's parents immigrated to the United States when he was three

years old. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in

1924 and later toured Europe, studying and sketching architectural monuments.

In 1941 he was in partnership with George Howe and from 1942 to 1944 with

Howe and Oscar Stonorov. He became a professor of architecture at Yale

University in 1947. After a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (1950),

which deepened his appreciation of Mediterranean architecture, Kahn carried

out his first important work: the Yale University Art Gallery (195254) which

marked a notable departure from his International Style buildings of the

previous decade. In 1957 Kahn was named professor of architecture at the

University of Pennsylvania. Kahn was elected aFellow in theAmerican Institute

of Architects in 1953. He was made a member of the National Institute of Arts

and Letters in 1964. He was awarded theFrank P. Brown Medal in 1964. He was

made a member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1968 and

awarded theAIA Gold Medal,the highest award given by the AIA, in 1971 and

the Royal Gold Medal by theRIBA in 1972.

In 1974, Kahn died of a heart attack in a men's restroom inPennsylvania Station

in New York. He went unidentified for three days because he had crossed out the

home address on his passport. He had just returned from a work trip to

Bangladesh,and despite his long career, he was deeply in debt when he died.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAIAhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Institute_of_Architectshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Institute_of_Architectshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Franklin_Institute_Awardshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Arts_and_Scienceshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIA_Gold_Medalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Institute_of_British_Architectshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Station_(New_York)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladeshhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladeshhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Station_(New_York)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Institute_of_British_Architectshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIA_Gold_Medalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Arts_and_Scienceshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Franklin_Institute_Awardshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Institute_of_Architectshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Institute_of_Architectshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAIA


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Synthesis of his architecture.

Before his 50 s, Louis Khanwas a successful architect yet limited with

boundaries such as youth, inexperience, the

Second World War and the Great Depression.

In that period of time he devoted himself to the main architecture problem of his

age: the need of a new modern architectural language.

But what he has accomplished in later life, is something more.

Kahn started his career as a Modernist, but after his premature death he was

defined as one of the first Post-Modernist American architects.

His architecture was built on continuous questioning, especially through the

dialogues with his colleagues and students and his travels around Europe.

Louisswork has been described as remote, mysterious, primitive, violent,elemental, heavy, monumental, silent and timeless.

But, what was Louis Kahn philosophy based on?

In essence, Kahn s work relied on only a few central aspects, order andcontradiction.

Order. At the beginning of his creative process, he has always considered two

elementary figures, the square and the circle.

This was because he believed in geometry, it had the pure and immediate

expression of order. What order meant to him is still undefined.

Louis himself tried to define it, but when he eventually realized that it was not

possible to do so, started to say I stopped bynot saying what it is, just saying

Order is.Probably the more accurate attempt to define it was by Prof. John Lobell, who

wrote Order is the way something exists, fully expressing its nature.

Contradiction. Kahn knew that by using simple geometric figures in plans and

elevations, there was the danger that the work could become too mechanical or

schematic.

So he adopted his own concept of contradiction, derived from the Mannerism

movement, and using it he created something to resist rationality and rigidness.


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From this first theoretical basis and the conviction that contemporary architects

could and should produce buildings which were as monumental and as

spiritually inspiring as the ancient ruins of Greece, Rome and Egypt, Kahn

devoted his career to the pursuit of creating his personal view of perfection,

through buildings.

In comparison with other architects of his same merit, Louis Kahn has produced

very few buildings.

However, like Prof. Cesar Pelli (Prof. Yale University) has said he achievedextraordinary power with very simple means. That was always Khan s strength.

Philips Exeter Academy Library.

Kahn was chosen to design this building for the Philips Exeter Academy, a

prestigious private school in the state of New Hampshire, USA, in 1965.

The library was finished in 1971, it is the largest secondary school library in the

world and is considered not only one of Kahn s masterpieces but one of the most

important buildings in the history of modern architecture .

When he began his design for the library, Louis first asked himself what a library

should be, its Order.

His goal was to discover the essential meaning of a library and to let this

meaning guide his design process.To do this Kahn began as if no other library had ever been built. He asked himself

this at the very early stage, and he answered by saying I see a library as a placewhere the librarian can lay out the books, open especially to selected pages to

seduce the readers. There should be a place with great tables on which the

librarian can put the books, and the readers should be able to take the books and

go to the light. This simple statement describes the Library s entire design.

Its also important to know that Kahn loved books, he said that a book is

tremendously important, nobody ever paid for the price of a book, the paid only

for the printing. He hadsuch a powerful vision of books, therefore consideredthis building a temple.

Salk was a temple for science, Dhaka was a temple for government and Exeter

was a temple for learning.

At first glance the external appearance of Exeter Library seems a very simply

structured, symmetrical form.

People have described it as a big cube of bricks or as ruins of four walls not

jointed together, like as if the building was never completed, simply enclosed

from the exterior by glass.

The site is surrounded by neo-classical buildings, that gives a conservative

atmosphere to the campus. So in not try to make something that stands out,


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Kahn decided to use the same material of the buildings around: a dark-red brick,

but with the integration of irregular, faulty products in the faade.

A closer look, reveals the elements on the outside of the library, which are:

The piers that from the ground rise in height, becoming thinner and the ground

floor arcade that creates a shadow at the bottom of the building, permitting it tohide the main entrance like in a cave.

Another particularity is that all the openings slightly change from a rectangular

shape at the lower level to a square at the highest floor, giving the building a

distinct sense of flow and growth.

At the top level, the ruin concept comes into the design in the form of an open

arcade, similar to ancient arenas like the Colosseum in Rome.

Whereas the ground level arcade, that has to be seen like a transition zone

between inside and outside, omits the entrance, that leads to the main stairs.

Moving up these stairs, the library user, enters a central hall surrounded on all

sides by large circularopenings, this is where the invitation to books happens.

Moving to the upper levels, users have the possibility of maintaining the contact

with the central hall through a series of balconies.

Opposite the balconies, the user will find the books in stacks. And after choosing

a book, the user moves to the beautifully austere study carrels located along the

perimeter of the building.

From this description of how a user navigates the building, it is clear how Kahn sdesign idea enables people to take books to the light, as the study carrels areimmersed in natural light. Whereas in contrast to this light, theres the more

quieter and cooler area of the central hall that enters the building from above, an

astonishing ceiling with two diagonal beams that brings the element of

monumentality to the design.All of this, the concrete structure, the glass windows and the wood balconies and

carrels are simply jointed together. Because for Louis Ornament began with thejoint, the meeting of one material with another is an ornamental event for him.

Analyzing the plans, it is clear how the architect divided the building into zones,

it can even be said that there are three buildings in one.

The three zones are the outer brick zone, that is the space to relax and read in;

the adjacent concrete zone, where the books are stored and the hollow interior

entrance hall atrium.


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Kahn, in all his work wanted to give rise to the monumental and timeless, yet

what I believe is the true element that fascinates us when we look at this building

is the density of meaning on which its design was established.

I believe that Louis Kahn is not fully appreciated by most, it has been argued thatarchitecture has to be enjoyed by everyone.

But this is what he was and what he wanted to be, mysterious, spiritual,

indefinable by his generation.


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Bibliography.

. Kahn, L.I.. (1969) Conversation with students. 2ndedition, Houston , Texas:

Architecture at Rice Publications;

.Goldahagen, S.W.. (2001) Louis Kahn s Situated Modernism. 1stedition, Italy:Conti Tipocolor;

.Gast, K-P. (1998) Louis I. Kahn The Idea of Order. 1stedition, Germany:

Birkhauser;

.Brownlee, D.B. and Delong, D.G.. (1997) Kahn. 1stedition, London: Thames and

Hudson LTD;

.Twombly, R.. (2003) Louis Kahn Essential Texts. 1stedition, New York:

W.W.Norton & Company;

.Jencks, C.. (1987) Post-Modernism The New Classicism in Art and Architecture.

1stedition, Great Britain: Academy Editions;

.Roman, A.. (2009) Kahn s Exeter Short Film [Online video]http://vimeo.com/5407991;

.Kahn, N.. (2003) My Architect [Documentary-film];

. http://johnlobell.com/Books/KahnBldgsBk.htm;
http://vimeo.com/5407991http://vimeo.com/5407991http://vimeo.com/5407991

Louis Kahn and the X Building

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