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.
— Sam Rodell, WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY, Thesis 2008
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 more dynamic exchange through which both artists benefited, and the contributions of the youthful Venturi on the elder Kahn may well have been pivotal for Kahn. As Kahn’s mature work began to emerge during the later years of his career, crucial aspects of that now distinct ‘signature’ architecture may well be traced to his intimate exposure to Venturi’s (then radical) emerging theories."
3 Comments
Great post Quondam. Here is the unbroken link. I will read it tonight.
http://archinect.com/forum/thread/52945355/the-philadelphia-school-deterritorialized
it seems to me, from reading that essay which is interesting but i do have issues with it. there is an implied direction towards "begging the question and an overt enthusiasm for full saturation. the author isolates two figures without giving justification for doing so: was Kahn so isolated to have no other influence but from Tyng (great..another influential woman architect now added to my memory bank) and then Venturi?
it seems to me, looking at the comparative examples, whatever influence Venturi had on Kahn, that influence did not so much transfer a philosophical outlook on architecture as might be inferred from that essay. kahn might have incorporated architectonic aspects but these definitely transformed to conform to that sombre, monumentalizing Kahn even fundamentally religious outlook. for instance, while one might stop at pointing a transfer of ideas concerning perforated screen walls, is that enough? in the Indian Institute of Management, for instance, these suggest a cryptic dimension that seems, to me, closer to Scarpa (who is more a contemporary of Kahn) than to Venturi. and so with the Exter library where they look in rather than out.
with Venturi, i see architecture springing from the contigency of the human mind whereas with Kahn, architecture is -to a considerable extent- an instance of immanence.
By the way, in expressing the above, I do not mean to glorify one over the other - a desire that the thesis paper seems to me to be tinged with. In it, kahn is 'psychologized' and made vulnerable where venturi remains an opaque source. Basically, I'm reading about who is the top and who is the bottom here. Fantasies architectural.
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