LOUIS KAHN’S BIRTHDAY WILL BE ON SATURDAY
Last year, for Louis Kahn’s 119th birthday, we published an article that spoke of the relationship between Kahn and Rudolph, and—as they were born nearly two decades apart—it compared the different worlds from which they emerged. There’s other interesting material in the article, and one can find it here—but today we just want to mark the natal day of one of the 20th Century’s great creative spirits.
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 (the vital architectural movement which emerged in post-WWII Japan), and about the relationship of Modern Western architecture and Japan, which can be found in the book “Project Japan: Metabolism Talks...” by Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist and published by Taschen.
You can register for Thursday’s webinar symposium, celebrating and exploring Louis Kahn, here.
This new, in-depth study of Kahn’s work can be purchased here, or directly through the publisher, Monacelli Press
Louis Kahn and Paul Rudolph share a number of qualities, particularly the depth and richness of their oeuvre, their recognition that their work aimed to fulfill so much more than just functional requirements, and their explorations of the roles and possibilities of architecture. They were also both willing to take on any kind of building type, and to work with (and within) a variety of cultures and communities. It is a tribute to these architects that so many different clients—individuals and institutions with a variety of needs, problems, and challenges—saw in Kahn and Rudolph the possibility for finding positive and meaningful solutions.
CELEBRATING LOUIS KAHN: A CONVERSATION
Designers & Books and Untapped New York are sponsoring a special event to celebrate Kahn’s birthday:
Kahn at 120
The multi-talented Richard Saul Wurman will be having a conversation with Sue Ann Kahn, Alexandra Tyng, and Nathaniel Kahn—the three children of Louis Kahn. The three speakers—all accomplished artists in their own right, in music, painting, and film—will discuss their father’s influence, as well recollections of him, his continuing legacy, and his relevance in the world today.
The webinar event will take place on Thursday, February 18 (a couple of days before Kahn’s birthday on Saturday), at 6PM Eastern Standard Time, and you can register for it here.
CELEBRATING LOUIS KAHN: A DEEP VIEW INTO HIS WORK aND PHILOSOPHY
Louis Kahn is the subject of continuous attention and scholarship. In the time since we marked Louis Kahn’s birthday, last year, an important new study of his architecture has been published:
LOUIS KAHN: Architecture as Philosophy
Written by John Lobell, a full professor at Pratt Institute’s School of Archicture, this new book greatly extends and profoundly deepens the meditation on the meanings of Kahn which Lobell initiated in his earlier volume, Between Silence and Light: Spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Kahn. This new book has the high production values that its publisher, Monacelli Press, always brings to their offerings, and in it John Lobell explores:
" . . . .how Kahn’s focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy. Kahn’s work clearly conveys a kind of “transcendent rootedness”—a rootedness in the fundamentals of architecture that also asks soaring questions about our experience of light and space, and even how we fit into the world.”
Reexamining an architect’s life, work, and development—and finding a renewing enrichment in it— Well, we can think of no better way to honor and celebrate the spirit and contributions of Louis Kahn!
IMAGE CREDIT: The National Parliament House of Bangladesh, designed by Louis Kahn. Photo by Nahid Sultan & Saiful Aopu, via Wikimedia.
.jpg){kind=link}