Photographs showing Paul Rudolph and Louis Kahn, together, are rare. This one was taken at the 1960 World Design Conference in Tokyo. This image is part of a large gathering of historical material about Metabolism, a vital architectural movement which emerged in post-WWII Japan (and about the relationship of Modern Western architecture and Japan)—which can be found in Project Japan: Metabolism Talks... by Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Louis Kahn was born on February 20, 1901—and today we celebrate his 119th birthday!
Louis Kahn (1901-1974) was an architect whose work and thinking can be characterized as nothing less than profound, and we celebrate his birth.
It is also interesting to acknowledge his relationship with another great architect, Paul Rudolph—and that relationship’s range and complexity.
Kahn and Rudolph knew each other over decades. They overlapped at Yale: both were educators in the School of Architecture, and both received prominent commissions from the university—Rudolph’s Yale Art & Architecture Building (now Rudolph Hall) was across the street from Kahn’s Yale University Art Gallery (and Kahn’s Yale Center for British Art was also not far away.)
The Yale University Art Gallery, designed by Louis Kahn, opened in 1953 (the section Kahn designed is in the middle of the photo.) It was added to an earlier building by Egerton Swartwout, which opened in 1928 (seen in the right third of the photo). Rudolph’s Art & Architecture building can be seen at far-left. Photo by Gunnar Klack.
The Yale Art & Architecture Building was designed by Rudolph while he was chair of Yale’s architecture school. Opening in 1963, and was rededicated as Rudolph Hall in 2008. It’s directly across the street from Kahn’s Yale University Art Gallery (which had opened a decade earlier than Rudolph’s building). Photo by Gunnar Klack
They attended some of the same architectural conventions: both were participants at the World Design Conference (Tokyo, 1960 - see photo at the top of this article), and also the International Congress of Architects (Isfahan, 1970).
No doubt they also followed each other’s careers through the architectural press. Rudolph’s work was published from the late 40’s onwards (and, as time went on, with increasing frequency and breadth of coverage). But he later experienced a sharp drop in recognition and number of commissions in his own country (though, in the final phase of his career, he attracted significant clientele internationally.) Kahn’s rise to renown started at least a decade after Rudolph’s, and developed into outright veneration during his lifetime (and after Kahn’s initial flush of fame, his work was continually published and celebrated.)
Kahn & Rudolph: Men Of Different Worlds
They were also born into different worlds—indeed, one could say different civilizations. When Kahn was growing up, the Austro-Hungarian Empire still ruled the middle of Europe, Empress Dowager Cixi was still trying to hold onto power in imperial China, the British Empire encircled the globe, and the Tsar was the royal head of the Russian Empire (which spanned from Eastern Europe to the Pacific) .
A Lost World: before World War One, much of the globe was divided into large empires. This map, of the situation before the war, shows which countries had dominion over which areas (see key at right.) Most of of these empires would disappear after the war (and many borders would change)—but this was the world in which Kahn grew up (and which Rudolph, born 17 years later than Kahn—and growing up after the war—did not experience.) Map by Ishvara7
Kahn—born in Estonia (part of that Russian Empire)—was an immigrant, and would not see the United States until his family moved here when he was age 6.
By-contrast: Rudolph was born nearly two decades later, and grew up in the American South and mid-West. He was a child when the above empires had already been swept away by World War One (or were to fall or be diminished soon thereafter). Though his youth was mainly of “small town America", it was nevertheless in a country which was going through the Roaring 20’s/Jazz Age, massive industrialization, and subsequently the Great Depression—and no one alive during those years could be unaware (and unaffected) by that period.
It is hard to imagine the texture and flavor (and fears and opportunities) of what life was like even 50 years ago. To gain some feeling for the different (and lost) worlds from which these two men came—a century-or-more ago—we could turn to literature: works like The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth (for Kahn); and Stark Young’s The Pavilion and Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street (for Rudolph.)
Kahn & Rudolph: A Complex Relationship
We have little evidence of much comradeship between the two men—but the complexities of a relationship that spanned decades are hard to appreciate, much less summarize.
Despite his ability to convey a commanding presence (possibly learned as a naval officer during World War Two), Rudolph could be awkward in social situations. So his facility for starting friendships with his academic colleagues at Yale may have been constrained by his own distancing manner.
In some accounts, Kahn was offended by renovations that Rudolph was asked (or forced) to make in Kahn’s Yale Art Gallery Building. But the extent of Kahn’s resentment (if any) has also been disputed—and this is gone into in Robert A. M. Stern’s and Jimmy Stamp’s book, Pedagogy and Place: 100 Years of Architectural Education at Yale (in which Kahn figures prominently; and which includes an extensive chapter devoted to the era when Paul Rudolph was chair of the architecture department.)
Respect—In Both Directions
Even with some problems between them, they both did show that they valued each other’s work.
A former Yale student of Rudolph’s shared with us that Rudolph was “never negative” about Kahn, and told the student that Louis Kahn was an important architect and his work was worth studying—and we’ve heard other evidence of Rudolph’s respect for him.
You Say to Brick: The life of Louis Kahn is Wendy Lesser’s full-length biography of Kahn. She writes of the time when Stanley Tigerman came across Kahn (whom he knew, and who had been one of his teachers at Yale). They were both making air travel connections through London’s Heathrow Airport: Kahn was on his way back to his home in Philadelphia, and Tigerman was traveling to Bangladesh. She quotes Tigerman:
“I’m at the airport and I see this old man, who looks like he has detached retinas and is really raggy and looks like a bum. It was Lou. If I had not known it was Lou Kahn, I would have thought he was a homeless person.”
They sat down and talked:
“We were reminiscing. We had a nice talk. He seemed exhausted, depressed. He looked like hell.”
After they say goodbye and part, Kahn calls back to him:
“‘Tigerman, come here.’ He said, ‘I know you are close to Paul. and I haven’t seen him in such a long time. Tell him when you see him that I miss him and I think he is really a terrific architect.’ I was really touched by that.”
Adding significance to this memory is that this is the last time that Tigerman—or anyone in the the architectural community—would see Kahn, as he passed away the next day before reaching home.
Stanley Tigerman (1930-2019)—in addition to being an active architect and vocal advocate—was a prolific author. Tigerman’s pulls-no-punches memoir, “Designing Bridges to Burn,” his last book, was published in 2011. Both Tigerman’s book, and the biography by Wendy Lesser, tell the story of Tigerman’s final encounter with Louis Kahn—exactly one day before Kahn died in 1974.
Wendy Lesser’s full-length biography of Louis Kahn (1901-1974) delved into all aspects of the architect’s life.