 |
Louis KahnAmerican architect
Date of Birth: 20.02.1901
Country:  USA |
Content:
Biography of Louis Kahn
Louis Kahn, an American architect, gained fame as the creator of monumental brick and concrete structures that offered an alternative to Frank Lloyd Wright's "organic" architecture and the strictness of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson's "glass boxes".
Early Life and Education
Louis Kahn was born on February 20, 1901, on the island of Ezels (now Saaremaa) in Estonia. In 1905, he immigrated to the United States with his parents. He graduated from the architectural school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1924 and then worked with several Philadelphia architects. He later became a consultant for civil construction and urban design.
Career and Recognition
In 1948, Kahn became a professor of architecture at Yale University, where he chaired the department until 1957 when he was invited to the University of Pennsylvania. His first major work, the Yale University Art Gallery (1953), brought him recognition. The exterior design of the building followed the traditions of the International Style, but the interior stood out with its rough surfaces of concrete ceilings and exposed engineering equipment, reflecting Kahn's belief in the aesthetic merits of exposed construction.
The Medical Research Laboratories of A.N. Richards at the University of Pennsylvania (1957-1961) showcased Kahn's ability to highlight the visual value of what he called "servant spaces" (i.e., the technical areas of a building). The range of scales in Kahn's work is impressive, from a bathhouse in Trenton, New Jersey, to the master plan of the capital city of Bangladesh, Dhaka, where government buildings were constructed based on a unified concept from 1962.
Kahn's later period of work demonstrated his variety of forms and textures. Examples include the First Unitarian Church in Rochester, New York, with its slag block walls, the angular plan of the Jonas Salk Center for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, made of concrete and wood, and the large circular concrete openings in the central courtyard of the library in Exeter, New Hampshire.
Kahn paid special attention to natural light effects when designing the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, where artworks are illuminated by light reflected from high, intricately shaped vaults. His work on the British Center Mellon at Yale was completed after his death.
