Archinect - News

Learning from the last of Louis Kahn’s important sketchbooks

2024-07-13T10:00:00-04:00

The architect who designed some of the 20th century’s great buildings kept a notebook with intimate glimpses into his creative vision. Now it’s his daughter’s final goodbye. [...] We’re reminded of the nuts and bolts of architecture — how legends, too, are susceptible to so-called value engineering.

Sketches for posthumously completed projects for the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park in New York City are included in the recreated facsimile, which Kahn’s daughter Sue Ann put together for the 50th anniversary of his death with help from Swiss publisher Lars Müller.

The result, Sam Lubell writes for the Times, is a "remarkable creation." (It's important to note that these are separate from the Kickstarter-funded push for another facsimile copy of earlier sketchbooks from Designers & Books.)

Conservation work on the YCBA, meanwhile, is expected to wrap up later this year.

Louis Kahn-designed Graduate Theological Union building in Berkeley reopens following two-year renovation

2023-11-24T15:15:00-05:00

After two years of alterations, the Louis Kahn-designed Hewlett Building at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA has reopened. According to the college, the renovations were undertaken to “better serve the needs of students” while remaining loyal to Kahn’s original vision.

Image credit: Graduate Theological Union

Kahn was selected to design the building in 1972 but passed away two years later while the scheme’s final drawings were being produced. Having subsequently been delivered by local firm Peters, Clayberg, and Caulfield in association with Esherick, Homsey, Dodge, and Davis, the Hewlett Building is one of few projects of Kahn’s completed after his death.

Image credit: Graduate Theological Union

The latest alterations to the building began in 2022, led by local firm Russell Architects. Among the stated goals of the college for the renovations were to bring the institution’s community “under one roof and offer more collaborative spaces to gather in study, classroom setti...

Harriet Pattison, landscape architect and longtime Louis Kahn collaborator, dies at 94

2023-10-10T18:47:00-04:00

Harriet Pattison, a noted American landscape architect who worked closely with her romantic partner Louis Kahn, passed away in Philadelphia last week, according to their son, filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn. She was 94.

Pattison enjoyed a career that spanned more than thirty years, working predominantly in Maine and Pennsylvania before she pursued her own path following the death of Kahn in 1974. Pattison studied landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania after working briefly in Dan Kiley’s Vermont-based practice. She would later go on to work alongside Kahn on the Kimbell Art Museum and Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park projects through a position with George Erwin Patton. Pattison was also inducted as a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2016.

Pattison was instrumental in creating the landscape architecture at Louis Kahn's design for the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Photo: Carol M. Highsmith/Library of Congress (Public Domain)

Patti...

The Salk Institute opens its doors for Louis Vuitton fashion show

2022-05-16T14:28:00-04:00

The Salk Institute recently opened its iconic campus to Louis Vuitton for a private fashion show presenting the brand’s Cruise 2023 collection. This event was the first of its kind to be held at this location.

As noted by the Institute, the use of space, natural light, materials, and bold lines throughout the Louis Kahn-designed structure was a fitting setting for the French fashion label’s showcase. Its travertine courtyard was converted into a temporary runway, framed by the two mirrored concrete buildings. At the center of the courtyard, the Institute’s “River of Life” water feature cut through the runway. Guests were able to enjoy both the show and views of the sunset over the Pacific Ocean.

Video via Louis Vuitton on YouTube.

“Salk has a global reputation as ‘a cathedral to science, an homage to art,” said Salk President Rusty Gage. “The Institute’s founder, Jonas Salk, understood that art and science come from the same creative source. It was his intention that his Institute...

Center for Architecture and Design to honor KieranTimberlake with its 35th Louis I. Kahn Award

2021-10-07T13:52:00-04:00

Philadelphia’s Center for Architecture and Design will honor Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake with the 2021 Louis I. Khan Award.

The duo and founders of eponymous KieranTimberlake will join David Adjaye and Jeanne Gang as recent winners of the annual award now in its 35th year.

The award is meant to recognize the influence of its namesake, a Philadelphia native and icon of modernism, that Timberlake referred to as an “architect’s architect.”

“We are humbled and grateful for this award,” the architect said in a statement. “As for Steve and me, and the firm at-large, it is recognition of the diligence, effort, and hard work that we give to each and every commission and an acknowledgment to our clients that they made the right choice.”

Related on Archinect: How To Get A Job At: KieranTimberlake

KieranTimberlake’s practice was first established in the city in 1984 and has since gone on to establish itself as an international leader in the industry, with multiple AIA awards and a 2010...

Publisher to launch Kickstarter campaign to reissue 'The Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn'

2021-01-29T12:46:00-05:00

Designers & Books is launching a Kickstarter on February 17 to issue The Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn, long out of print, in a new facsimile edition. Created by Richard Saul Wurman, along with printer Eugene Feldman, and first published in 1962 (second edition, 1973). The book features sketches from Kahn's travels and drawings of selected projects, paired with texts from his personal notebooks and unpublished speeches.

1956 study for center city Philadelphia, ink on tracing paper

1957 A.N. Richards Medical Research Building, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, definitive study, pencil on tracing paper

This reproduction will be accompanied by an extensive Reader's Guide, which will include new writings by a variety of critics and colleagues as well as personal recollections. Additional visual material will also accompany the work, including many previously unpublished.

1962 Graham Foundation studies for center city Philadelphia, plan diagram, ink

Mikveh Israel Synagogue...

Louis Kahn buildings in Ahmedabad saved from demolition

2021-01-04T12:50:00-05:00

The board of governors (BoG) for Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad has decided to withdraw an expression of interest (EOI) that was put out by the management last month inviting architects and designers to propose plans for demolishing dormitories in the campus built by American architect Louis Kahn and replacing them with new structures.

The school reversed its decision to demolish and replace 14 of the 18 dormitories built by Louis Kahn between 1962 until his death in 1974 following international outrage over the proposal.

A change.org petition to save Kahn’s aging IIM Ahmedabad structures has already attracted more than 15,000 signatures.

Related on Archinect: Louis Kahn's floating music barge is saved, finds home in Philadelphia. Point Counterpoint II. Image via American Wind Symphony Orchestra.

Louis Kahn's floating music barge is saved, finds home in Philadelphia

2020-12-07T12:27:00-05:00

The Point Counterpoint II, a boat designed by Louis Kahn for musical conductor and longtime friend Robert Boudreau, will dock permanently in Philadelphia after it was recently saved from the scrapyard. Yo-Yo Ma, the renowned cellist, made a plea in 2017 to save the vessel from destruction that resulted in a ripple of interest to preserve Kahn and Boudreau's creation.

Previously on Archinect: Louis Kahn's floating concert hall, Point Counterpoint II, is facing demolition, and Yo-Yo Ma wants it saved. Point Counterpoint II, Photo by josepha on Flickr

According to Architectural Record, a group including architect Lee Skolnick launched a successful effort late 2019 to salvage the ship. Due to open in 2022, the ship's interior will be refurbished before it serves as "the key musical component" of a new arts and culture hub in development at the abandoned Delaware Power Station in Philadelphia.

Anne Tyng and Her Remarkable House

2018-02-26T18:54:00-05:00

She believed that the five Platonic solids were the most basic archetypes upon which all organic structures, micro- and macrocosmic, were formed.

A diagram of the addition. Anne Tyng Collection, Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania

"She was known as Louis Kahn's muse but never really escaped his shadow. What Tyng's only surviving solo project says about her legacy.

The Rome Letters 1953–54 (Rizzoli), Kahn and another architect were working on a “roofless rectangular scheme” for the Bath House but she “almost immediately” came up with a plan involving “four symmetrically arranged squares with hipped roofs.” She wrote that the design was inspired by bathhouses she remembered from her childhood in China, where her parents were missionaries. William Whitaker, the curator and collections manager of the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, who became friends with Tyng later in her life, confirmed that the Bath House was largely Tyng’s work. “That’s Anne’s plan,” he told me."

The third-floor addition on Tyng's house. Anne Tyng Collection, Architectural Archives, University of Pennsy...

'My Dad, the Starchitect': an emerging documentary subgenre

2017-10-16T14:21:00-04:00

In an emerging subgenre of architectural documentary, Nathaniel Kahn, Tomas Koolhaas, and Eric Saarinen take a personal look at their mythologized fathers. [...] Whether a film deals in the social or monumental legacy of an architect, the idea of the genius—which has been so unevenly applied—should come under scrutiny. As the children of architects have conferred through these films, nobody can be all things to all people.

In her piece for CityLab, Daisy Alioto looks at three recent examples of iconic architects having their life's work documented in film by their sons: Rem Koolhaas in REM, produced by Tomas Koolhaas; Eero Saarinen in Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future, by Eric Saarinen; and Louis Kahn in My Architect, a film by Nathaniel Kahn.

In case you missed it, listen to our One-to-One podcast interview with Tomas Koolhaas.

Philip Kennicott's plea for Washington D.C. to save Louis Kahn's floating concert hall

2017-08-24T14:25:00-04:00

The boat belongs in Washington, a city both blessed and socially determined by its rivers....Many of the most dramatic and some of the most exciting changes in Washington today are clustered along its rivers. The most visible transformation is the District Wharf development,...but projects like the 11th Street Bridge Park....transcend mere commercial development, and underscore the myriad possibilities of using the river as a means of connection, social equity and public discourse.

The saga to save the Louis Kahn-designed floating concert hall, Point Counterpoint II, continues. It all began back in mid-July when Yo-Yo Ma made a plea in The New York Review of Books to salvage the barge facing demolition on account of the fact that the owners—Robert Boudreau, whom doubles as the orchestra's conductor, and wife Kathleen—are ready to retire their duties as the boat's caretakers.

Both city officials and activists in the Hudson River town of Kingston, New York have expressed interest in acquiring the ship; they were expected to meet with Boudreau on August 4th to discuss the possibility. While the Mayor, Steve Noble, has agreed to offer his support, raising the funds for the purchasing and transport of the $2 million dollar vessel, that might now be going for as much as $4 mill, poses a problem for the city. Further, the competition is apparently stiff as there has been interest expressed in Buffalo, France, and Italy among others.

One of those places vying for th...

Every City Needs a Crank; A conversation with architecture critic Inga Saffron

2017-08-17T20:07:00-04:00

This week we're joined by Inga Saffron, the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer. If you haven't read her latest piece on Henry Wilcots, the relatively unknown architect responsible for finishing Louis Kahn's masterpiece in Dhaka, go read it now. We talk with Inga about her experience meeting with Wilcots, architecture criticism pre and post-internet, Philadelphia and more.

Photo from 1970 of Wilcots and Kahn discussing the roof structure of the National Assembly building in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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Meet Henry Wilcots, the overlooked African-American architect who completed Louis Kahn's Dhaka National Assembly

2017-08-14T13:59:00-04:00

It would be the decisive moment in Wilcots’ life. By saying yes, he ended up devoting more than 20 years to helping Kahn build the new capital...The meetings would cause him to move to Philadelphia, a place that at the time seemed to him far less welcoming to African Americans than Dhaka. When Kahn suffered a fatal heart attack in 1974...Wilcots would assume the awesome task of finishing a Louis Kahn masterpiece.

This article sheds light on the story of Henry Wilcots (now 89 years old), the much overlooked architect who was responsible for completing Louis Kahn's Dhaka National Assembly masterpiece. Dubbed as the “Kahn whisperer” by fellow colleagues, the calm-and-collected Wilcots was able to have a smooth working relationship with Kahn, the article says.

Paul Goldberger writes on the mysticism of Louis Kahn

2017-07-21T14:07:00-04:00

Kahn led a generation of architects away from the standard-issue modernism of glass and steel boxes, but his route was gentle, thoughtful, philosophical, and sometimes vaguely mystical, which is part of the reason that he never really became famous. Kahn’s semi-obscurity didn’t just extend to the cops at Penn Station: The Times obituary had to be written on deadline the night his death became known, because the obit editors hadn’t considered him important enough to merit one in advance.

In his essay on Kahn, Goldberger examines methodologies of biographical writing, and explores the enigmatic aspects of the architect's identity and work.

"You get his essence almost as much through his words as his buildings. Both are somewhat spare and cryptic, and both are rich in meaning. Who else but Kahn could have said, “A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end be unmeasurable…. what is unmeasurable is the psychic spirit.” Or, “The sun never knew how great it was until it struck the side of a building.” Or, “I want to give the wall a consciousness.”

Kahn’s writing could dance on the edge of psychobabble, and we almost certainly would have been less forgiving if his architecture hadn’t been as good as it was. But at their most evocative, Kahn’s words don’t give us insight into his buildings so much as they do him and the reasons behind his designs. Kahn spent his life in pursuit of the distinct...

After Yo-Yo Ma's plea, Point Counterpoint II, Louis Kahn floating concert hall, may be saved after all

2017-07-19T14:14:00-04:00

Officials and activists in the Hudson River town of Kingston, N.Y., plan to meet with the boat's owner Aug. 4 to discuss the possibility of transporting the vessel there from its current berth on the Illinois River in Ottawa, Ill. Late last month, musicians performed aboard the boat in the town, some 80 miles southwest of Chicago.

Last week Archinect reported that Yo-Yo Ma sent a letter out through the New York Review of Books in an attempt to save the floating concert hall, designed by Louis Kahn, from demolition. The famed cellist pleaded: "At a time when our national conversation is so often focused on division, we can ill afford to condemn to the scrap heap such a vibrant ambassador for our national unity, so I humbly ask that your readers join Robert and me in finding a new home for Point Counterpoint II." After five decades of running the barge, the owners, Robert Boudreau and wife Kathleen, have decided to retire their duties as caretakers and have been struggling to find a new proprietor for the ship. However, with a little help from Yo-Yo Ma, they may have found the vessel a new home in Kingston, NY.

Reportedly, Hutton Brickyards is being considered as the floating venue's new home. The former industrial site that supplied bricks to New York City up until the 80s was acquired by California-based deve...

Louis Kahn's floating concert hall, Point Counterpoint II, is facing demolition, and Yo-Yo Ma wants it saved

2017-07-13T16:02:00-04:00

Anchoring in large cities and small towns, in busy shipping lanes and at public parks, the barge opens like a clamshell to reveal a glittering concert stage. Audiences on shore delight in the music, much of it specially composed for Maestro Boudreau and his American Wind Symphony Orchestra

Louis Kahn was commissioned to design Point Counterpoint II, a unique floating concert hall, by conductor Robert Austin Boudreau in the mid 1960s. Launched in 1976, the 195-foot structure carried an orchestra up and down America's waterways for five decades. Robert Boudreau and his wife, Kathleen, have recently decided that they cannot keep running the barge. At the conclusion of the Orchestra's 2017 tour, it will be broken down to scrap in a Louisiana shipyard—despite the owner's best efforts to find a new guardian for the unique, mobile cultural institution.

Drawing of Point Counterpoint II, by Louis Kahn

Point Counterpoint II, Photo courtesy of American Wind Symphony Orchestra

Point Counterpoint II, Photo by josepha on Flickr

Point Counterpoint II, Photo courtesy of American Wind Symphony Orchestra

Yo-Yo Ma, a French-born Chinese American cellist, recently wrote about his admiration for Point Counterpoint II, i...

The Getty completes major renovation project of Kahn's Salk Institute

2017-06-29T12:22:00-04:00

It’s heralded as one of the major masterpieces of American modernism, but its ocean-adjacent location has made conservation difficult. Today, the Getty Conservation Institute announced that a major renovation project of Louis Kahn ’s Salk Institute in La Jolla has been completed.

The project centered primarily around restoring the complex’s teak window walls. Set within the monolithic concrete walls of the study towers and offices, they had weathered to a non-uniform appearance and were deteriorating. While prefabricated, the windows have a “hand-crafted quality” due to the detailing. Over the years, they suffered surface erosion and had accumulated a fungal biofilm.

Salk Institute for Biological Studies, photos by Elizabeth Daniels

“Restoration of the teak wood presented a number of challenges,” says Kyle Normandin, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. project manager and associate principal. “The success of the project is that we were able to save so much of the original materia...

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"?

Untangling Louis Kahn's life and work

2017-04-24T12:38:00-04:00

It is one of history’s cruelties that Louis Kahn is almost better known for his unconventional domestic arrangements than for his architecture. Kahn gave us a remarkable string of masterpieces that includes the Salk Institute and the Kimbell Art Museum, and yet he was one of those shambling geniuses whose life was a mess of contradictions. While his commissions took him around the world, he managed to maintain three separate families at home in Philadelphia.

"He had a reputation for blowing deadlines and budgets, testing the patience of clients. No one was surprised to learn after his death in 1974 that his firm was deep in debt. The turmoil of his life came to overshadow his accomplishments."

The author, Inga Saffron, reviews You Say to Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn by Wendy Lesser, a new biography/monograph on the renowned architect. "Wendy Lesser’s You Say to Brick is easily the most complete narrative of Kahn’s life and career, magnificently researched and gracefully written," she writes.

Salk Institute to be refurbished by The Getty Conservation Institute

2016-09-27T14:38:00-04:00

Fungal biofilm and water sealant failure have added a black patina to the Salk Institute's iconic teak paneling, making the material vulnerable to decay. In order to save what is considered to be one of the world's finest architectural projects (and coolest structural alignment of the sunset save for perhaps Manhattanhenge), the Getty Conservation Institute undertook three years of careful study and is now ready to start implementing those improvements.

According to Getty Conservation Institute project specialist Sara Lardinois, “The GCI sought to address issues on a long-term basis while preserving cultural significance and addressing the needs of those managing the site. Our aim was to help the Salk Institute incorporate a conservation approach into its overall site management at a critical point in the building’s history—the 50-year mark often coincides with the need for a first major repair in modern buildings.”

For more on all things Louis Kahn:

Kimbell’s $135 Million Expansion ...

Kahn brought back to new life: gorgeously renovated Yale Center for British Art due to reopen

2016-05-10T18:09:00-04:00

The greatest work of art at New Haven’s Yale Center for British Art is arguably the landmark building itself—and Louis Kahn’s last structure is due to reopen this month after a 16-month renovation of its public galleries and lecture hall, and an upgrade of its accessibility, security, mechanical and electrical systems. This is the third phase of a $33m conservation project that began in 2008.

"George Knight of Knight Architecture, who led the conservation work, says: “The thing that kept me up at night was [thinking] how can we preserve the building, which is so architecturally rich, and do all this surgery so as not to disfigure the patient in any way?""

All images courtesy of the Yale Center for British Art.

Renovation of Kahn's Richards Labs pleases both scientists and architects

2016-01-12T13:05:00-05:00

The renovation has pared Kahn's spaces down to their essence, restoring a Zenlike calm, and revealing the muscular concrete structure that made the design such a revelation in the early 1960s, when International Style glass towers were all the rage. As Kahn, who was known for his mystical pronouncements, might say, Richards has become the building it always wanted to be.

The renovation was led by Penn's university architect, David Hollenberg, who oversaw a host of architects working on the complex's four towers, including: EYP, Urban Engineers, Keast & Hood, Bruce Brooks & Assoc., and Atkin Olshin Schade. Hollenberg also suggested Penn nominate the building for National Historic Landmark Status, which it achieved in 2009, complicating the renovation significantly.

Works by Le Corbu and Louis Kahn in Ahmedabad left off historic conservation list

2015-06-16T15:38:00-04:00

The father of modern architecture Le Corbusier and the most influential architects of the 20th century Louis Kahn will not find place in the latest heritage conservation list of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). Ahmedabad happens to be the only place in the world where Le Corbusier had designed four different buildings. Louis Kahn's IIM-A building too does not figure in the list of heritage buildings.

"The list, which consists of 2,247 buildings and havelis in the walled city and 382 buildings outside the walled city area, will be notified in a day or two. Inclusion in the list will mean that the new conservation building bye laws would now be applicable."

In-depth Louis Kahn exhibition opening at London’s Design Museum on July 9

2014-07-07T21:13:00-04:00

"Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture" is a multi-themed exploration behind legendary architect Louis Kahn that will be showcased at the Design Museum in London starting Wednesday, July 9. Until Oct. 12, 2014, the exhibition will feature architectural models, original drawings, travel sketches, photographs, and films – including interviews with famous architects like Renzo Piano, Frank Gehry, Sou Fujimoto, and Peter Zumthor who each describe how Kahn has influenced his own work.

Learn more about the exhibition on Bustler.

Dead man building: is Louis Kahn's posthumous New York project his best?

2014-07-07T13:56:00-04:00

When the American architect Louis Kahn collapsed from a heart attack in the toilets of New York's Penn Station in 1974, he left behind a lot of loose ends. There were three children, by three different women [...]. There was his dwindling practice, which he left $500,000 in debt. And, tucked away in his sketchbooks, was a complete set of drawings for an unrealised project – one that would lie dormant in his archive for almost 40 years.

The Influence of Robert Venturi on Louis Kahn

2013-06-18T17:03:00-04:00

This study 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 Venturi’s.

If my friend Kurt Dillon has not sent me the link for this significant thesis by then Master of Science in Architecture candidate Sam Rodell in Washington State University in 2008, I would have my suspicions hanging in the air without proper documentation. It is a great reading for folks who are ready to trash Robert Venturi at all times and treating Kahn as Zeus from the top of the hill. I have learned from and a fan of both, btw.

"This study 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 Venturi’s.

Starting with Venturi’s master’s thesis in 1950, the relationship continued past the seminal publication of Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture sixteen years later. Some historical accounts portray Kahn as mentor to Venturi over this period of time. It was in fact a ...

Eisenman's House VI, Venturi's Philadelphia House, and Louis Kahn’s Esherick House all set to hit the market

2013-05-01T18:18:00-04:00

Three of the most important modernist houses in the Northeast, including the 1964 house Robert Venturi designed for his mother, have been (or will soon be) put up for sale by their long-time owners, two of them without covenants that would ensure their preservation.

Venturi's Philadelphia House

Louis Kahn’s Esherick House

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".

Four Freedoms Park and Modern Memorial Design

2012-11-05T17:47:00-05:00

The creation of a public monument is a fraught business these days. That the pristine work of an architect nearly 40 years dead should rise intact, in today’s contentious political, legal and aesthetic climate, is a wonder. And how timely it is that the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt should be honored in such eloquent fashion at a moment when powerful political forces in this country seek to dismantle it.

Why is the design of memorials so fraught? Belmont Freeman reviews the design and politics of diverse memorials to American presidents, with a focus on Four Freedoms Park in New York City, the memorial to Franklin Roosevelt designed by Louis Kahn that opened last month.

Louis Kahn’s Memorial to FDR opens on Oct. 24

2012-10-12T16:10:00-04:00

Kahn drew up the design in 1973, rendering it with soft charcoal on yellow tracing paper. He had readied it for construction in 1974, but New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, a prime mover of the project, became vice president to Gerald Ford and got distracted by mightier demands... Then Kahn died of a heart attack in a public bathroom in New York’s Pennsylvania Station at age 73.