Louis I.

Kahn
(b. Saarama, Estonia 1901; d. New York, N.Y. 1974)
Louis Kahn was born in Saarama, Estonia in 1901. His family emigrated to the U.S. in 1905. He
graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a thorough grounding the the Beaux Art
school of architecture. During the 1920s and 1930s he worked as a draughtsman and, later, as a
head designer for several Philadelphia-based firms.
In 1925-26 Kahn acted as the Chief of Design for the Sesquincettennial Exhibition. During the
Depression, he was active in the design of public assisted housing. Beginning in 1935 Kahn
worked with a series of partners, but from 1948 until his death in 1974, Kahn worked alone.
From 1947 to 1957 he was Design Critic and Professor of Architecture at Yale University, after
which he was Dean at the University of Pennsylvania.
Kahn's architecture is notable for its simple, platonic forms and compositions. Through the use
of brick and poured-in place concrete masonry, he developed a contemporary and monumental
architecture that maintained a sympathy for the site. While rooted in the International Style,
Kahn's architecture was an amalgam of his Beaux Arts education and a personal aesthetic
impulse to develop his own architectural forms.
Considered one of the foremost architects of the late twentieth century, Kahn received the AIA
Gold Medal in 1971 and the RIBA Gold Medal in 1972. He was elected a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1971.
Dennis Sharp. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Architects and Architecture. New York: Quatro
Publishing, 1991. ISBN 0-8230-2539-X. NA40.I45. p86.
Works
Erdman Hall Dormitories, at Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, 1960 to 1965.
Esherick House, at Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, 1959 to 1961.
Exeter Library, at Exeter, New Hampshire, 1967 to 1972.  * 3D Model *
First Unitarian Church, at Rochester, New York, 1959 to 1967.
Institute of Public Administration, at Ahmedabad, India, 1963.
Kimbell Museum, at Fort Worth, Texas, 1967 to 1972.
National Assembly in Dacca, at Dacca, Bangladesh, 1962 to 1974.
Norman Fisher House, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1960.
Richards Medical Center, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1957 to 1961.
Salk Institute, at La Jolla, California, 1959 to 1966.
Trenton Bath House, at Trenton, New Jersey, 1954 to 1959.
University Art Center, at New Haven, Connecticut, 1951 to 1954.
Yale Center for British Art, at New Haven, Connecticut, 1969 to 1974.  * 3D Model *

Sources on Louis I. Kahn

Heinz Ronner, Sharad Jhaveri. Louis I. Kahn. Birkhauser Verlag, August 1996. ISBN 3-7643-
1347-1. — The definitive complete works of Louis Kahn, in one large Kahn-style volume. Available at
Amazon.com