Archinect - News

The open plaza at Salk Institute is threatened with an approved enclosed addition

2022-05-09T14:47:00-04:00

It’s like installing a two-story-high picket fence around Stonehenge

A dispute over an addition to the Salk Institute in La Jolla has ended. Last week, the Planning Commission denied an appeal claiming the proposed design ruins the historic integrity of the East Torrey Pines building.

The proposed project, located at 10010 North Torrey Pines Road, increases the East Torrey Pines building from 94,200 to 97,140 square feet, while decreasing the future Salk Community Center. Changes will be made to the building's floor plans, exterior elevations and roof. as well as its access, parking and landscaping.

A monumental new biography of Kahn

2017-05-12T19:39:00-04:00

In You Say to Brick, her subtle interpretations of conversational remarks by Kahn’s intimates, and especially of of Kahn’s written ephemera—a dream journal entry on the back of an airline receipt, an unsent postcard—are luminous and deep. It is difficult to develop, in prose, an architectural equivalent for this kind of close reading or close listening.

Over at n+1, Thomas de Monchaux reviews Wendy Lesser's newly published 'You Say to Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn'.

While everyone knows the story of Kahn's gothic and ignominious death, did you also know that "When Kahn died, his firm...owed its creditors $464,423.83. In 1974 dollars"?

Kimbell’s $135 Million Expansion Has Light, Needs Soul

2013-11-18T20:30:00-05:00

Designed by Louis Kahn in 1972, the Kimbell is considered the greatest American museum building of the 20th century. Understandably, the new $135-million addition by Renzo Piano, which at 101,000 square feet (9,383 square meters) just about doubles the Kimbell’s space, has been anticipated with trepidation.

The Homey Side of Louis Kahn

2013-11-15T15:25:00-05:00

A new book, “The Houses of Louis Kahn” (Yale University Press, $65), provides an architectural bridge between the personal and the professional stories, focusing on the nine houses Kahn completed, and designs for two dozen more. The story told by the authors, George H. Marcus and William Whitaker, is one of warm client relations, attention to the smallest domestic detail and a philosophical search for the best arrangement of rooms to call home.

Editor's Picks #321

2013-06-25T11:32:00-04:00

For the latest edition of the Student Works: series Archinect featured work by two AA Visiting Schools one held in Athens & the other in Istanbul. Completed prior to the recent OccupyGezi unrest, Noise De-Former (one of the projects from the Istanbul school) "aimed to materialize the fluctuating noise levels in Taksim Square by creating an interface which can regulate noise, enabling a more comfortable environment for the public resting in Gezi Park".

News
Inspired by a recent discussion re: the Influence of Robert Venturi on Louis Kahn Orhan Ayyüce; highlighted a significant thesis by then Master of Science in Architecture candidate Sam Rodell in Washington State University completed in 2008. In the thesis Mr. Rodell, "considers the question of how Louis Kahn’s development as an architect was shaped by the influences of Robert Venturi. The personal and professional interaction between these two historically significant architects began late in Kahn’s career and early in Ven...

A world-class encyclopedic art museum, complex re-opens in New Haven

2012-12-15T18:22:00-05:00

Balance. For decades we’ve had an art culture that tries to wow us with too muchness — blockbusters, biennials, bank-breaking museum buildings no one needs — and that ends up delivering way too little. Could it be that the day of just enough is upon us, and that Yale’s just right museum is a bellwether?

Holland Cotter reviews the final results of the $135 million renovation and expansion of Yale’s museum complex. The entire refurbished complex — a block-and-a-half-long stretch that is itself a museum of changing architectural styles — officially re-opened two weeks ago. Consisting of the 1953 Kahn building and two adjacent buildings on Chapel Street — the so-called Old Yale Art Gallery, a 1928 neo-Florentine Gothic building and Street Hall, a Ruskinian Gothic structure from 1866 — the renovations and additions have combined to give the respected institution an "aura of a destination'. The paper also recently published a profile of Jock Reynolds, director of the Yale University Art Gallery, by Charles McGrath. Therein McGrath explored the successful tenure of the sculptor turned director who has "caused hundreds of millions of dollars...to pour into Yale’s coffers" or to put it another way "He makes money rain on the place".

Decades Later, a Vision Survives

2012-09-13T12:43:00-04:00

The park...was conceived four decades ago. The visionary architect who designed it died in 1974. The site...remained a rubble heap while the project was left for dead. But in a city proud of its own impatience, perseverance sometimes pays off.

An early look at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park

2012-05-18T20:17:00-04:00

Archinect Editorial Contributor Aaron Plewke recently visited the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, which opens officially Fall 2012. Designed by Louis I. Kahn the park is on the southern tip of Roosevelt Island, New York City. Check out more photo's via his Flickr stream.