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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.
— The New York Times
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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 Times of India
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
She believed that the five Platonic solids were the most basic archetypes upon which all organic structures, micro- and macrocosmic, were formed. — Architect
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... View full entry
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.
— citylab.com
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... View full entry
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 Washington Post
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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. — Inga Saffron for the Philadelphia Inquirer
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... View full entry
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. — The Nation
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... View full entry
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. — Chicago Tribune
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... View full entry
