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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 — The NY Review of Books
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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. — n+1
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"? View full entry
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. — the New York Times
"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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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. — theartnewspaper.com
"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... View full entry
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. — philly.com
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... View full entry
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.
— Times of India
"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." View full entry
"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. — bustler.net
Learn more about the exhibition on Bustler. View full entry
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. — theguardian.com
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... View full entry
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. — archrecord.construction.com
Venturi's Philadelphia House Louis Kahn’s Esherick House View full entry
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? — NYT
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... View full entry
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. — Places Journal
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. View full entry
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.
— bloomberg.com