Pratt students from the early 70s would be in their late 50s by now, which seems a little beyond the average demographic for this site...

Is there something in particular that would make them recall this specific lecture? (I don't remember a whole lot of specifics about most of the architecture lectures I've attended from the late 80s to the present...)

But you might want to check with the architecture department and/or the library at Pratt. Most architecture schools keep archives of audio recordings of their lecture series.

Thanks for the heads-up (F.unknown) on the archives, but my question is specific to how the observer felt about the lecture that Kahn presented. The whole notion of asking "The Brick" what he wanted to be....yada yada

note: I highly doubt you would forget a kahn lecture, let alone such a powerful one..... I had a structures prof. who was taught by Kahn at Penn. he can recall lectures almost down to punctuation.

"Is there something in particular that would make them recall this specific lecture?"

How about the fact that Louis Kahn gave it?

Yikes.

One of Kahn's lectures went like this :-

"Architecture is ......... ( and dead silence, while everyone filled up their minds) "

- end of lecture.

amazing man ... sad about the way he died though.

did you know that "debbie does dallas" was filmed in the Pratt Library?

-to

I never knew where that came from, my first year professor used it as the basis for a studio lecture early on. I mean I knew it was Kahn, but I didn't know which lecture. I should hunt down a copy of that thing.

behind the green door was filmed here...

Myriam,

did you mean the "architecture is..."? I got it from a book "silent spaces" by "gautam bhatia" I could hunt down on which lecture it was..

i`ve got few copies of kahn`s lectures lying in a cd somewhere. in one of his lectures where he explains his doughnut concepts for the phillips exeter library he starts off by asking "what is architecture?"

followed by the silence...

kahn shoots another question by what a library means to his listeners. then continues with his lecture on his thoughts about a library....blah blah.
(you guys looking for this lecture?)

er.. sporadic .. its 'Silent Spaces and other Stories of Architecture'

yep thats the one chameleon ... lol .. sorry didnt read the smaller print

have you read "punjabi baroque and baniya gothic" ? ... something like that . i havent got my hands on it !!

Hi All:
Thanks for all the responses....especially the DdD (hmmm very interesting) ~ I am happy to announce I did find a professor at Pratt, that actually sat through the lecture. Thanks for all the offers....
Russell

yeah that`s the first book he wrote-

"Silent spaces...." is actually a sequel to "Punjabi Baroque and Other Memories of Architecture". the third was "Malaria Dreams and Other Visions of Architecture".
actually, i don`t remember if i read the first or the second.

yoharv- i`m very curious to know more, you writing a book or something?

"Malaria Dreams and Other Visions of Architecture" ? ,, lol .. very typically bhatia.. i'll have to pick it up on my next trip to india ... probably feb ... i read the silent spaces one and enjoyed it throughly !!