Robert McCarter

6 PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

10 INTRODUCTION

14 DEVELOPMENT OF AN
ARCHITECTURAL PHILOSOPHY

68 REDISCOVERING AN
ARCHITECTURE OF MASS
AND STRUCTURE

150 SHAPING AN ARCHITECTURE

OF LIGHT AND SHADOW

236 INSPIRED COMPOSITIONS

IN THE POETICS OF ACTION

316 PRECISE EXPERIMENTS

IN THE POETICS
OF CONSTRUCTION

404 UNBUILT OFFERINGS:

IN THE SPACES OF ETERNITY

466 CONCLUSION
470 Selected writings by Louis I Kahn
502 List of projects 1926–73
510 Notes
520 Bibliography
522 Index
Rediscovering an Architecture of Mass and Structure 64 Rome and Power of Ruins 65

ROME AND THE POWER OF RUINS

By 1950 Kahn had become a leader in his profession any examples of the modern architecture which had
through his membership and leadership in organiza- so influenced him, and to which he was now so com-
tions such as the T-Square Club of Philadelphia (of pletely committed in his own work. This is a clear indi-
which he was president), the American Society of cation that Kahn chose his subjects of study on this
Planners and Architects (vice-president in 1946 and trip very carefully, focusing intensely on a very few
president in 1947), and the Architectural Advisory ancient structures.
Committee for the Federal Public Housing Agency Starting in December 1950, Kahn was based at the
(of which he was committee chair for the entire east American Academy in Rome, located just below the
coast region), as well as through recognition of his ridgetop of the Janiculum Hill on the west side of the
multi-family housing designs, which had been exhib- Tiber River, and built to the designs of McKim, Mead
ited twice at the Museum of Modern Art, and his Weiss and White by the American Beaux-Arts establishment
House, which received the Chapter Medal from the to house the Rome Prize Fellows in painting, sculp-
Philadelphia AIA in 1950. He was also considered a ture, music, architecture, landscape architecture,
leader of the profession for his inspired teaching at writing, archaeology, classical studies and art history
Yale, and it was this, and his friendship with George during their year residency. Kahn lived in the Villino
Howe, which led to his appointment in late 1950 as Aurelia, a small dwelling built into the garden wall of where they visited the Forum and the Baths of Cara-
the Architect-in-Residence at the American Academy the mid-seventeenth century Villa Aurelia, across the calla, as well as Tarquinia, Hadrian’s Villa and Ostia,
in Rome. street from the garden of the American Academy and Brown pointed out aspects of the Roman architecture
Kahn’s time at the American Academy was consid- directly adjacent to the Porta San Pancrazio and the that would have been immediately significant for Kahn.
erably less than the year he spent in Europe in 1928–9, ancient Aurelian city wall. Occupying one of the high- Brown begins his book on Roman architecture by stat-
2
but despite the brevity of this stay the effect on him est points in Rome, the windows of the Villino Aurelia ing, ‘The architecture of the Romans was, from first
could hardly have been more profound. To understand gave Kahn views over the rooftops of ancient Rome, to last, an art of shaping space around ritual,’ and his
the intensity with which he threw himself into this visit, including a ‘secret’ small oval window in the bath- descriptions of Roman buildings could very well be
it should be noted that during only three months he room that frames a view of the dome of St. Peter’s to applied with equal accuracy to Kahn’s later work: ‘The
made ninety drawings – almost as many drawings as he the north.110 basilica was … an augustly luminous volume, doubly
had made during the twelve months of his 1928–9 trip. While at the American Academy, Kahn spent time wrapped by shadowed galleries,’ and ‘the expertly
On this occasion Kahn drew with charcoal and pas- conversing with Frank Brown (Kahn’s fellow Yale fac- compact spatial composition, with its running coun-
tels, and according to his travel companions from the ulty member), who, as the Academy’s resident archae- terpoint of cubical and spherical, dome and cross or
American Academy took no more than twenty minutes ologist, brought the Roman ruins to life for generations barrel vault, gave compelling unity.’112
to complete a drawing.108 Kahn drew ancient Italian, of Fellows. So deep was Brown’s understanding of the Walking through the Roman ruins, Kahn studied
Greek and Egyptian sites, alongside vernacular build- ancient Roman world and its architecture that he was the monumental buildings, stripped ages ago of their
ings and landscapes, and except for a brief visit to the said to be ‘the last living ancient Roman, so at home in marble cladding, their brick relieving arches revealed,
construction site of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation the Roman ruins that he seems no longer a part of the their massive brick and concrete structural walls
in Marseille,109 it appears that Kahn did not sketch modern world’.111 As Brown took Kahn through Rome, and vaults exposed, showing how they were made.

1 ‘Study for a mural upon Egyptian motifs’, 1951 2 A Roman wall, Italy, drawing by Louis Kahn,
(detail); drawing by Louis Kahn of the pyramids at 1951. Kahn focuses on the masonry mass of the wall,
Giza. This drawing is related to the mural that Kahn the deep shadows at its openings and the relieving
designed and executed at Weiss House in 1955. arches seen on its surface.
Shaping an Architecture of Light and Shadow 202 Salk Institute for Biologicial Studies 203

its arcaded plaza leading up from the The Meeting House was placed at its
town below and its stone-paved cen- far end, across a bridge, on a bluff
tral cloister, this monastery has par- directly above the ocean (3). By early
allels not only with the programme 1961 Kahn had developed what would
of the Salk Institute, but also with substantially remain the final site
its overall site design and the char- plan. The laboratories lined up along
acter of its spaces. In the summer of the road to the east, the residences
1960, Kahn wrote of his desire to visit nestled along the south edge of the
Europe, ‘specifically northern Italy, to canyon, and, at the western end of
see again the wonderful monasteries the tree-lined plaza along the north-
which have a bearing on what I am ern ridge, the Meeting House over-
doing for Dr Salk in San Diego’.58 looked the ocean.
Kahn’s initial designs involved From the earliest designs, it is
the laboratories being proposed in clear that Kahn intended the Meeting
towers, arranged as square or cruci- House to be the dominant element of
form clusters (similar to the Richards the Institute, and it was invariably
Medical Research Building), which given the purest geometries and most
were in turn set on to four circular massive form, as well as the prime
plinths (similar to that of the Jewish position on the site – this is clearly
Community Center Day Camp). From seen in the final aerial perspective
the parking area provided directly drawn by Kahn, where he positions
off Torrey Pines Road, a road and the Meeting House in the foreground,
walkway were proposed to run in close to the viewer and fully detailed,
a straight line along the top of the with the laboratories and residences
northern ridge (with the residential in the distance (10). Kahn’s initial
buildings set along it in this scheme). designs, for the bluff closest to the

4 Dr Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine, at

the Salk Institute.
Shaping an Architecture of Light and Shadow 220 Salk Institute for Biologicial Studies 221

31 32

31 Computer reconstruction of view through sun in place after construction; digital reconstruction 32 Computer reconstruction of view through sun
shield walls from one reading room to another, Meet- by Kent Larson. shield walls from one dining room to another, Meet-
ing House, Salk Institute. Concrete shown as cast in ing House, Salk Institute; digital reconstruction by
travertine stone slab formwork, which remained Kent Larson.
Inspired Compositions in the Poetics of Action 278 Bangladesh National Capital 279

9 View from the stair along the edge of the south

plaza of the Assembly Building, Bangladesh National
Capital, looking northwest, with the prayer hall in the
centre left and an office block on the right.
Precise Experiments in the Poetics of Construction 326 Library and Dining Hall, Phillips Exeter Academy 327

11 central room, measured from the floor to the bottom 12

of the roof structure, which had been set at the begin-

ning of the design in 1966 at 50 feet (15 metres), was
changed by Kahn in 1968 to 52 feet (16 metres). This
was a seemingly small change, but one of the greatest
importance, for, taken together with the 32 foot (9.7
metre) plan dimension, it resulted in the section of the
central hall being a perfect ‘golden section’ proportion
(1:1.618), as we see it today.
Seen across the grass lawn of the Phillips Exeter
Academy campus, the Library is a massive, cubic
brick block, 111 feet (33.4 metres) wide and 80 feet
(24 metres) tall, its re-entrant corners stepping back
to reveal the four 88 foot (27 metre) wide ‘brick build-
ings’ housing the carrels. Each facade extends beyond
the last perpendicular brick pier at either end, as well
as the recessed forty-five degree wall at each corner,
thus appearing to be a freestanding plane or screen.
In the four facades, the brick piers are spanned by flat
‘jack’ arches at the floor lines; a single storey at the
ground floor, with four double-height floors above. As
the building rises, the brick piers decrease in width
by one brick length at each floor; the window open-
ings between the piers increase in width by a match-
ing amount; and the flat arches (the angled masonry and the teak-wood carrel is a bent stainless-steel drip
of which affects this transition in the piers’ width) – the only element Kahn allowed to project forward
increase in depth at each floor. The whole forms a of the brick wall – which makes a sharp shadow line.
‘statically hierarchical’ expression of the load-bear- Red-coloured sandstone coping (cap-beams) are set
ing brick walls33 – the piers wider at the bottom where above the open, 6 foot (1.8 metre) brick balustrades
the load is greatest, and narrower at the top where the at each corner balcony and at the rooftop pergola; the
load is least, allowing us to see ‘the way they bring the non-load-bearing balustrades are separated from the
weight down’ to the ground.34 Kahn intended that the load-bearing piers by vertical slots. At ground level
inhabitant empathetically read the building’s struc- the brick walls stand upon a band of dark granite,
ture, embodied in the brick piers of the facade, per- expressing the concrete foundation beneath, and the
ceiving through the changes in their widths the way in heavy, open arcade anchors the building to the ground;
which the piers at the top ‘are dancing like angels’, as as Kahn stated, ‘The arcade is a landscape thing. It
compared to ‘the bottom, where they are grunting’.35 belongs to the building, certainly, but it also belongs
A deeply shadowed arcade runs around the Library to the entrance and belongs to the grounds.’37
at the ground, while the top floor of the ‘brick build- We may enter the Library, as Kahn said, from any
ing’ is opened as a pergola, through which we can see direction, through the arcade: ‘From all sides there is an
the sky beyond – dark below, light above. In the three entrance. If you are scurrying in the rain to get to the build-
double-height floors between, the openings are glazed, ing, you can come in at any point and find your entrance.
with a large sheet of glass recessed in the depth of the It’s a continuous, campus-type entrance.’38 Once within
brick wall placed above teak-wood-clad volumes set the low, brick-floored and brick-walled arcade, we make
flush to the outside face of the brick wall, and in which our way to the north side of the building, overlooking the
are opened a single window in the lower floor and, in central green of the campus, where a glass-walled entry
the upper two floors, small double windows, lighting vestibule is found. Entering, we are in a double-height
the pairs of carrels within – an evolution of Kahn’s ear- space, in the centre of which rises a superb double stair-
lier single-floor library reading carrels in the Biology case, its tall cylindrical outer walls framing two curved
Research Building at the University of Pennsylvania.36 stair sets, left and right, which meet in the middle at the
At the transition between the recessed upper window landing above – as in Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library

11, 12 Interior views of the Phillips Exeter Academy (right) shows the X-shaped concrete roof beams con-
Library. The view across the central hall (left) shows necting to corner piers, lit on all four sides by clere-
the entry stair below and the book stacks through story windows; in this photograph the artificial lights
circular openings ahead, with crossing roof beams are extinguished so the illumination is provided only
above. The view looking up at the central hall ceiling by daylight entering through the clerestory windows.
Precise Experiments in the Poetics of Construction 400 Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial 401
 Louis I Kahn (1901–74) was one of the Robert McCarter is a practicing architect
Rediscovering an Architecture of Mass and Structure 66 Rome and Power of Ruins 67

DEVELOPMENT OF 3 In Greece, Kahn’s drawings indicate his under-

standing of the importance of the landform in ancient

AN ARCHITECTURAL
Greek sites, and he lavishes as much attention on the
buttressed foundations underpinning the Acropolis

greatest architects of the twentieth cen- and Ruth and Norman Moore Professor of
hill in Athens as on the elegant columned monuments

PHILOSOPHY
4
of the Parthenon and Erechtheion standing atop it (p.
211). He made several drawings of the sunken circular
Oracle at Delphi, a site with both spiritual and archi-
tectural meaning, typifying the ancient Greek habit of
inscribing their sacred spaces into the ground. Kahn
also made multiple sketches of the sacred mountain

tury, and his work remains a fundamental Architecture at Washington University in

peak of Arakhova; of the ruined city of Mycenae, the
place of origin of the Greek civilization; of the theatre
at Epidaurus and the temples at Corinth. What all
these sites had in common was their massive masonry
construction, their precise enclosure of inhabited
space and their powerful engagement of the land-
scape and urban form in the making of monumentally

source of enquiry and inspiration for con- St. Louis. His many books include Grafton
scaled place.
In early February, Kahn travelled to Florence, where
he sketched the urban spaces of the Uffizi, the Palazzo
Vecchio and the Duomo, and from which he made trips
to Sienna, Lucca, Bologna and Pisa, where he wrote
to Tyng that the Duomo, Baptistery and leaning bell
tower ‘is the most wonderful combination of buildings

temporary practitioners and aficionados Architects (2018); Marcel Breuer (2016);

in the world’.118 During that same month Kahn made
trips to Pompeii and Paestum, as well as Venice, where
he sketched the Ca’ D’Oro, the Doge’s Palace, and the
Standing beneath the vaults of these ancient masonry had a profound effect upon Kahn, and he would later as he said, from ‘sunrise to sunset’, and he wrote to Piazza and Basilica of San Marco. His drawings of the
structures, Kahn would have seen them from the same speak of the importance to his work of the Pantheon, Tyng, ‘The Pyramids are the most wonderful things I public spaces – the piazze – of Italian cities, as exem-
vantage point as that of the drawings in Choisy’s L’Art dedicated to all the gods, with its great spherical inte- have seen so far. No pictures can show you their mon- plified by the extraordinary sketches of Il Campo in
de bâtir chez les romains, the rising walls and over- rior space with its central oculus open to the sky that umental impact. They are any color you wish them to be Siena, show how the masonry walls and pavements

alike. This book features both built and Steven Holl (2015); Alvar Aalto (2014) and
arching ceilings merging to form the interior space. made present the axis mundi of the Roman cosmos. and as clouds pass the movement and change of color are brought to life by the strong sunlight that seems
Kahn typically spent only part of his days among the The Pantheon became Kahn’s favourite example of is overwhelming.’116 Kahn’s pastel drawings of the to pour into and fill the spaces, making their surfaces
ruins, often sitting in the garden behind the American both the need to take each programme back to the very pyramids are alive, their pure geometries and earth- glow in rich yellows, reds and oranges, with both green
Academy during the afternoon, saying that what he beginning, and the critical part that could be played tone colours transformed by the sunlight. In the more and black shadows (p. 430).119
had already seen was sufficient stimulation to thought by institutional architecture if it was fundamentally abstract of Kahn’s sketches, the four triangular sides Though relatively brief, this period of historical
for the time being, and that the Roman ruins needed engaged in civic life. and square bases of the Egyptian pyramids have been rediscovery would prove to be pivotal in Kahn’s devel-
to be contemplated from a distance to be fully under- Early in January 1951, Kahn travelled with a group of transformed into pure tetrahedrons with three sides opment as the most important modern architect of

unbuilt projects, including the Franklin Carlo Scarpa (2013), all by Phaidon Press.
stood.113 Years later, when asked what he did while Fellows to Egypt and Greece, spending the following and bases all triangular (1). The drawings reveal that his time. It led to his renewed understanding of the
he was a resident at the Academy, Kahn replied, ‘I three weeks moving from one ancient site to the next. Kahn saw the pyramids not only as enormous masses, importance of history in contemporary design, sum-
watched the light.’114 The group was briefly delayed in Cairo, allowing Kahn timeless and eternal, but also as ‘vehicles of light … marized by his saying that ‘what will be has always
Of particular importance to Kahn was Trajan’s Mar- a week at the pyramids at Saqqara and Giza, which reflectors of the sun’s rays’, as Scully has noted.117 been’.120 The eternal quality of heavy construction
ket, ancient Rome’s primary public market for food and astonished and overwhelmed him. One of the Fellows Kahn also visited the monumental temple complexes and the spaces shaped by massive masonry made a
other goods, with its multi-levelled basilica space ter- recalled that one day Kahn, dressed in his usual black at Karnak (p. 153) and Luxor, the Ramesseum, Medinet lasting impression on Kahn. This is evidenced by the
raced into the hillside and lit at all levels by natural wool suit in the ferocious desert sun, was so taken by Habu, the Hatshepsut Mortuary temple, and the tem- fact that, though the building he had completed just

D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park in

light. The market’s barrel-vaulted ceilings and match- the pyramids that he hardly noticed he was being car- ple at Edfu (p. 422), and Kahn’s drawings of the tem- prior to leaving for Rome (the Pincus Occupational
ing brick relieving arches, as well as its various meth- ried away by a band of over-eager Bedouins offering ples at Luxor are equally as powerful as those he made Therapy Building) was of steel construction, after his
ods of constructing openings in its brick walls, would camel rides, who had mistaken Kahn’s cries of ‘The of the pyramids, reflecting the intensity, movement and three months abroad Kahn would never again make
have direct parallels in Kahn’s later work. The great light, look at the light!’ to be agreement to a camel rich colours of both the light and the shadow, as well use of lightweight steel structures, building only with
civic monuments of Rome, both sacred and secular, ride around the pyramids.115 Kahn drew the pyramids, as the weight and permanence of the stones. reinforced concrete and masonry.

3, 4 Egyptian column capitals and Il Campo in

New York realized forty years after Kahn’s An indispensable reference work on one of
Siena, Italy, pastels by Louis Kahn, 1951. When asked
what he did on his travels in 1950–51, Kahn replied, ‘I
watched the light.’

REDISCOVERING AN
Precise Experiments in the Poetics of Construction

14
360 Kimbell Art Museum 361

death. Each of the architect’s major build- the most important figures in 20th century
ARCHITECTURE OF MASS
AND STRUCTURE
ings is analysed, beginning with the design architecture
process, followed by the methods and ma-
terials of construction, and closes with a Analyzes each of Kahn’s major buildings
‘walk-through’ of the spaces themselves. from the design process, methods and ma-
The projects are extensively illustrated terials of construction, to ‘walk-throughs’
with architectural drawings, archival as of the spaces themselves
well as new photography, and original
sketches that convey the spirit and qual- Includes selected writings by Kahn and the
SHAPING AN
Inspired Compositions in the Poetics of Action

b).67 At the same time, Kahn significantly increased

the size, complexity and geometric precision of the
central assembly chamber, which now took on the
282

14
Bangladesh National Capital

17
283

ities of Kahn’s work, together with the vi- complete chronology of Kahn’s projects,
ARCHITECTURE OF LIGHT
sual inspirations and ideas that led to the compiled by William Whitaker, Curator and
form of an octagon, composed of rotated squares
that interlocked with and were braced by a cruci-

AND SHADOW
form, housing the service components. The plans that
resulted were no longer defined by a geometrically
pure outer boundary, but instead comprised a series
of independent buildings, each an element complete
in its own geometry, which was bound to the octagonal

finished design. This updated monograph Collections Manager of the Louis I Kahn
centre – and the whole composition held together – by
the gravity of the assembly chamber. The plan of the
Assembly Building now assumed its final character as
a true ‘society of rooms’, each building-element inde-
pendent and self-defined within its own pure geome-
try, to be composed within the larger order of the plan
as though each element was a piece on a chessboard

is the indispensable reference work on this Archives

(10). In a telegram to his clients in early 1964, Kahn
said, ‘Buildings must be like a good position on the
15
chessboard. For its symbolic value no building must
be in the wrong place.’68
Kahn now set about developing these independent
room-buildings (38), beginning with the entry hall, which
bridges across the lake from the elevated plaza to the
north, and which was proposed as a rotated square void

renowned architect, and the definitive re-

within the larger square stair block to the north, bal-
ancing the initial design for the prayer hall as a rotated
square solid set on the south side. A central passage
runs from north to south through the entry hall, and a
second layer of walls is wrapped around the east and
west sides of the diamond-shaped interior space, with
the stairs placed between. The prayer hall began as a

cord of Kahn’s life’s work. Features such well-known buildings as

hollow pyramid with stairs climbing up the outer walls;
then evolved into a rotated square with four semicircular
apse-like spaces opening off it; then became a square 16
with three-quarter circular spaces at each corner; then
was briefly proposed as two intersecting circular spaces
(forming a vesica piscis) housing a double square
within; and finally returned to the form of a cubic vol-

Yale Art Gallery, Kimbell Art Museum, and

ume (measuring 66 feet (20 metres) across – the exterior
dimension of Wright’s Unity Temple), with four cylindri-
cal light towers centred on the corners. While the stairs
that serve this south side of the Assembly Building
were originally integrated into the prayer hall, running
around the outside of the inner cylindrical towers, they
were later removed into a separate circular hall located

the Salk Institute, along with his work in

between the prayer hall and the assembly chamber.
Throughout this process, the prayer hall, through which
the ministers enter the Assembly Building on the lower
level, mirrors the entry hall by bridging across the lake
from the elevated plaza to the south.

14 Plan sketch of the Assembly Building, late 1963, 15 Louis Kahn (left) and his assistants working on 16 Axonometric drawing with plan and section of 17 View of the assembly hall ambulatory and inner

India and Bangladesh

by Kahn. This shows the assembly hall (centre), of- the site model of the Bangladesh National Capital; it the Assembly Building, Bangladesh National Capital; wall of an office block, as seen from a bridge across
fices in four rectangular blocks on the diagonals, the was at this time that Kahn made the analogy between drawing by Florindo Fusaro. the ambulatory, Assembly Building, Bangladesh Na-
entry and stair hall (top) and the prayer hall (below). site design of individual building-rooms and posi- tional Capital.
tioning chess pieces on a board.

Inspired Compositions in the Poetics of Action 260 Indian Institute of Management 261

INSPIRED COMPOSITIONS
12 three levels of hallways of the class-
rooms are entered by the students
from the triple-height entry halls,

IN THE POETICS
Each project is illustrated with photo-
illuminated by large circular open-
ings, at both ends, and the hallways

OF ACTION
converge upon a massive stair block
set out into the courtyard. At the level
of the seminar rooms, we move into
the monumental stair hall from the
syncopating rhythm of the hallway

graphs and drawings that convey the spirit

through a powerful yet elegant series
of layered arches, entering through a
single opening, with arches pivoting
forty-five degrees to form a trian-
gular opening above, the courtyard
seen ahead through a double set of
arched openings. This stair hall and

of Kahn’s work, as well as the inspirations

the library porch are without ques-
tion among the most astonishing and
moving spaces Kahn ever realized,
and it is important to note that they
are part of the ‘architecture of con-
nections’, which, though not part of
the original brief, together make up
more than one-half of the floor area

that led to the design

of the Institute buildings.
The central court, named in Kahn’s
honour after his death, does not con-
tain its most important element, the
amphitheatre, which was to have
been covered by a fabric roof during
ceremonial occasions and in every-
day use would have formed the spa-
tial connection between the library
terrace and the floor of the court.
Also not realized was Kahn’s design
for the critical fourth wall of the cen-
tral court, to have been made by the
single-storey dining hall – a double
square in plan – crossing the court
and providing a covered connection
between the west ends of the class-
room and faculty office wings. Kahn
designed the kitchen as a cylindrical
domed structure, its roof opened by
eight clerestory windows to exhaust
the heat (and likely inspired by the

Phaidon Press Limited

abbey kitchen at Fontevrault), to be
placed beyond the western edge of
the main building mass, on the cen-
tral axis of the court, which runs

12 View up the entry stair of the Indian Institute of 12 (Following spread) View along the edge of the
Management; the shadow of the large mango tree at northeast dormitories, Indian Institute of Manage-

2 Cooperage Yard
the bottom of the stairs can be seen in the foreground, ment. The public facades of these buildings were
and the faculty office block is on the right. designed to be seen across the lake by visitors enter-
ing the main building.

PRECISE EXPERIMENTS
Precise Experiments in the Poetics of Construction

10
398 Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

12
399

Stratford
IN THE POETICS
OF CONSTRUCTION
London E15 2UR

Phaidon Press Inc.

65 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012
13

11

10 View of walkway at river edge, with statue at end 11 Elevated view of entry plaza and stairs. 12 View of entry into west side of room. 13 View of room, with sunlight entering through 1
© 2022 Phaidon Press Limited
phaidon.com
and room to right, F. D. Roosevelt Memorial. inch slots between granite blocks.
Louis I Kahn (1901–74) was one of the greatest architects of the twenti-
eth century, and his work remains a fundamental source of enquiry and
inspiration for contemporary practitioners and aficionados alike. This
book features both built and unbuilt projects, including the Franklin D.
Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park in New York realized forty years after
Kahn’s death. Each of the architect’s major buildings is analysed, begin-
ning with the design process, followed by the methods and materials of
construction, and closes with a ‘walk-through’ of the spaces themselves.
The projects are extensively illustrated with architectural drawings, archi-
val as well as new photography, and original sketches that convey the spirit
and qualities of Kahn’s work, together with the visual inspirations and ideas
that led to the finished design. This updated monograph is the indispens-
able reference work on this renowned architect, and the definitive record
of Kahn’s life’s work.