Louis i Kahn

LOUIS I KAHN

INTRODUCTION: Full Name

:

Louis Isadore Kahn

Original Name :

Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky

 Nationality

:

American

Born

:

February20,1901 Kuressaare, Govt.of Estonia Russian Empire

Died

:

March17,1974(aged73) due to heart –  heart –  attack  attack Pennsylvania station,  New York city. city.

INTRODUCTION: Full Name

:

Louis Isadore Kahn

Original Name :

Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky

 Nationality

:

American

Born

:

February20,1901 Kuressaare, Govt.of Estonia Russian Empire

Died

:

March17,1974(aged73) due to heart –  heart –  attack  attack Pennsylvania station,  New York city. city.

EARLY LIFE: 

Born in a poor Jewish family and spent his early childhood in Kuressaare Kuressaare on the the Estonian island of Saaremaa. Saaremaa.



In 1906, his family immigrated immigrated to the United States.



His family couldn't afford pencils pencils but made their own charcoal sticks from burnt twigs so that Louis could earn a little money from drawings.



He became became a naturalized citizen citizen on May 15, 1914.

.

CAREER:  He trained in a rigorous Beaux-Arts tradition, with its emphasis on drawing, at the University of

Pennsylvania. 

After completing completing his B.Arch in 1924, Kahn worked as a senior draftsman in the office of City Architect John Molitor. Molitor.



From 1929-1940, Kahn worked in the offices offices of Paul Philippe Cret, his former former studio critic at the University of Pennsylvania and in the offices of Zantzinger, Borie and Medary, Medary, George Howe, German German born architect Oscar Oscar Stonorov, Stonorov, in Philadelphia.



Kahn's teaching career career began at Yale Yale University in 1947, and he also worked as Professor of Architecture and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Technology in 1962 and at the University of Pennsylvania in1966 and was also a Visiting Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University from 1961 to 1967.

PAUL PHILIPPE CRET

ZANTZINGER 

GEORGE HOWE

OSCAR STONOROV

INFLUENCES: 

Kahn did not find his distinctive architectural architectural style until he was in his fifties.



Initially working in a fairly orthodox orthodox version of the International Style, a stay at the American American Academy Academy in Rome in the early 1950s 1950 s marked a turning point in Kahn's career.



The back-to-the-basics back-to-the-basics approach he adopted after visiting the ruins of ancient buildings in Italy, Italy, Greece, and Egypt helped him to develop his own style of architecture influenced by earlier modern movements.



Influenced by ancient ancient ruins, Kahn's Kahn's style tends to the monumental monumental and monolithic; his heavy buildings do not hide their weight, their materials, or the way they are assembled.

CONCEPTS: 

He believe that the buildings function should determine the space that is going to be created, in consequence color, materials, acoustic, rhythm, and the project’s circulation will depended on the essence of the creation.



The importance of his buildings is due to the almost  perfect integration of mass and shape. For Kahn, mass was always analyse rationally as a question of destruction. Well space was to find more mystically in terms of natural light.



Kahn used material’s natural color and texture to emphasize the importance of light in his compositions.



For Kahn it was natural light that brought Architecture to life. The artificial light had a very good quality in contrast to the ever changing daylight.

 Working

with simple materials especially Brick and Concrete. Kahn apply his principles to create buildings in steel with a spiritual quality for which he put great efforts through a masterful sense of spade and light.



He designed so as to be responsive to function, disciplined in structure, expressive in articulation and geometry, concerned with space and the nature of space, with light and introduction of light.



His concept of served and servant spaces is a realization of the separation between Equipment space and use space. This statement about the destination between “servant and served spaces” coined to apply to the new hierarchy of spaces..



For Kahn, form is the realization of appropriateness that  brings conceptional strength and unity to his Architecture.



He was also well known for his Brutalist aesthetic and  juxtaposing materials.



Kahn’s buildings are strong, unique, and rhythmic.



He uses just a few materials to center our attention on the geometric position. So, when it comes to Architecture and Design, Geometry is the fountainhead of his great work.

CHRONOLOGICAL EVOLUTION OF WORKS:

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut,(1951 –  1953), the first significant commission of Louis Kahn and his first masterpiece, replete with technical innovations. For example, he designed a hollow concrete tetrahedral spaceframe that did away with the need for ductwork and reduced the floor-to-floor height by channeling air through the structure itself. Like many of Kahn's buildings, the Art Gallery makes subtle references to its context while overtly rejecting any historical style.

The Richards Medical Research Laboratories, located on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. The building is configured as a group of laboratory towers with a central service tower. Rather than  being supported by a hidden steel frame, the building has a structure of reinforced concrete that is clearly visible and openly depicted as bearing weight. Built with precisely-formed  prefabricated concrete elements, the techniques used in its construction advanced the state of the art for reinforced concrete.

The  Salk Institute, La Jolla, California, (1959 –  1965), was to be a campus composed of three main clusters: meeting and conference areas, living quarters, and laboratories. Only the laboratory cluster, consisting of two parallel blocks enclosing a water garden, was actually built. The two laboratory blocks frame an exquisite view of the Pacific Ocean, accentuated by a thin linear fountain that seems to reach for the horizon.

First Unitarian Church, Rochester, New York (1959 –1969): Kahn's idea of the building began with a concept sketch that represented his understanding of Unitarian aspirations, with several concentric circles surrounding a central question mark. This led, through several iterations, to the final design in which the sanctuary is surrounded by a corridor and classrooms. The problem of  bringing natural light into the central space was solved by the four light towers which are perhaps the most distinctive feature of the  building.

Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, (1962). The old campus was designed by Louis Kahn, who was an exponent of exposed-brick architecture. The most distinctive features of the main structure are the numerous arches and square brick structures with circles carved out in the facade.

Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban (National Assembly Building) Dhaka, Bangladesh (1962 –1974), Kahn's key design philosophy optimizes the use of space while representing Bangladeshi heritage and culture. External lines are deeply recessed by  porticoes with huge openings of regular geometric shapes on their exterior, shaping the building's overall visual impact

Phillips Exeter Academy Library, Exeter, New Hampshire, (1965 –1972) It is famous for its dramatic atrium with enormous circular openings into the book stacks. Kahn made the building's exterior relatively undramatic, suitable for a small New England town. Its facade is primarily brick with teak wood  panels at most windows marking the location of a pair of wooden carrels. The bricks are load-bearing; that is, the weight of the outer portion of the building is carried by the  bricks themselves, not by a hidden steel frame.

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, (1967 –  1972), features repeated bays of cycloid-shaped  barrel vaults with light slits along the apex, which  bathe the artwork on display in an ever-changing diffuse light.



Type

-

National Assembly Building



Architectural style

-

Modern



Structural system

-

Reinforced concrete



Location

-

Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka, Bangladesh



Started

-

1961



Completed

-

1982



Total Area

-

200 acres (8,00,000 sq.m.)



It is one of the largest legislative complexes in the world. It houses all parliamentary activities of Bangladesh.



He designed the entire complex, which includes lawns, lake and residences for MP’s.

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY:

Kahn's key design philosophy optimizes the use of space while representing Bangladeshi heritage and culture. External lines are deeply recessed by porticoes with huge openings of regular geometric shapes on their exterior, shaping the building's overall visual impact.



The main building (the Bhaban) is divided into three parts:

The Main Plaza : 76,000 m² South Plaza : 21,000 m² Presidential Plaza : 6,000 m² - height of 33.5m   Consists of 9 individual blocks: the 8 peripheral blocks the central octagonal block - height of 47.2m  All 9 blocks include different groups of functional spaces and have different levels, inter-linked horizontally and vertically by corridors, lifts, stairs, and circular areas.  The entire structure is designed to blend into one single, non-differentiable unit, that appears from the exterior to be a single story.

THE MAIN PLAZA: 

The most important part of the Main Plaza is the Parliament Chamber, which can house up to 354 members.



There are also two podiums and two galleries for VIP visitors.



The Chamber has a maximum height of 35.6m with a  parabolic shell roof.



The roof was designed with a clearance of a single story to let in daylight.



Daylight, reflecting from the surrounding walls and octagonal drum, filters into the Parliament Chamber.



The artificial lighting system has been carefully devised to provide zero obstruction to the entry of daylight. A composite chandelier is suspended from  parabolic shell roof. This chandelier in turn consists of a metallic web, spanning the entire chamber, that supports the individual light fixtures.

Upper levels of the block (that contains the Chamber) contain the visitor and press galleries, as well as communication booths, all of which overlook the Parliament Chamber. The block also contains: at level one, a library; at level three, MPs’ lounges; and at the upper level, party rooms.

THE SOUTH PLAZA The South Plaza faces the Manik Mia Avenue. It gradually rises to a 6m height and serves as a  beautiful exterior as well as the main entrance to the Parliament Building. It contains: controlling gates; a driveway; a main mechanical plant room; a telephone exchange; offices of maintenance engineers; equipment stores; and an open plaza with steps and ramps leading directly to the main building.

PRESIDENTIAL PLAZA The Presidential Plaza lies to the North and faces the Lake Road. It functions as an intimate  plaza for the MPs and other dignitaries. It contains marble steps, a gallery and an open  pavement.

MATERIALS: The predominant materials are the concrete and red brick exterior that give the image of the complex

The great mass of concrete lined with strips of marble, marked by the outer wall openings and the predominance of geometric forms of circular and rectangular concrete offer a great tribute to the building.

STRUCTURE: 



One cannot find a column inside the  building. The columns have disappeared inside the divisive elements that have adopted the function of bearing walls. It's more like a large mass of concrete that has been digging and sculpting itself to achieve a perfect functional entity.



One of the most important considerations to take into account during the project was  protection from the sun and heavy rains and at the same time allow the free circulation of air. This was achieved by giving the facades at grade geometric openings in the form of triangles, rectangles, circles and arcs.



It avoids any conventional method of  placing the windows on the outside as well as the disadvantages of the composition of a typical monument building.

 Artificial lighting system

Natural lighting

SUMMARY: If we look at the history of architecture since its beginning, say from the time of the pyramids to modern times, and make a list of the most significant buildings, it is likely that the National Assembly of Bangladesh will occupy quite a prominent position. One could say that it was the culmination of the modern period of architecture and the beginning of the post-modern era.

INTRODUCTION:

It began in 1962 and that same year the architect was commissioned the National Assembly of Bangladesh.  The commission initially offered to a local architect B.V.Doshi ,  but that he had met Kahn in Philadelphia and was aware of the importance of their work and the importance that the new project would have both Kahn and for India, recommended that be given the new project to American architect. 

PROJECT: 



The implementation of this program required different types of buildings, a school, dormitories for students and housing for teachers and service. In this arid area of the country and in an area of 26 hectares fairly flat, Kahn outlined a map of inherent scale and geometric forms and related to the institutional hierarchy of the various buildings and programs.

LOCATION: 



It was built in an isolated rural area many miles away from the first point urbanized city of Ahmedabad. In this city, which enjoys an intense cultural life, commercial and political Kahn project completes a series of great works of architecture, both ancient and modern.

CONCEPT: Kahn conceived the Indian Institute of Management as a mixture of austerity and majesty, including spaces for informal interaction and achieving a balance between modernism and tradition, which captured the timeless spirit of India.

FEATURES Facilities include wide corridors that serve as transitional spaces in the complex interaction  between teachers, students and visitors. Distinctive features of these buildings include the many circular arches and brick structures on the walls with carved circles.

MAIN BLOCK

STUDENT HOSTELS

PROFESSOR’S RESIDENCES

3

6

2

5

7

1 4

PLAN OF IIMA 1.ENTRANCE 5.LIBRARY

2.AMPHITHEATRE 6.DINING HALL

3.CLASSROOMS 7.KITCHEN

8

4.OFFICES 8.WATER TOWER

RESIDENCES FOR TEACHERS: Married teachers or students could enjoy more complete housing units, are actually small apartments with lounge, kitchen, one or two bedrooms, shower room, bathroom and terrace.

1.VERANDAH 2.LIVING ROOM 3.KITCHEN 4.BED ROOM PLAN OF FIRST FLOOR 5.TOILET

6.BATHROOM 7.TERRACE PLAN OF GROUND FLOOR

PLAN OF FIRST FLOOR

STUDENT RESIDENCES PLANTS: 

It contains: Ground floor: This floor has a great hall, kitchens and dining rooms. First floor: hall to the dining balcony. Second and Third Floor: hall, bedrooms and bathrooms.



The provision of student dormitories and the school encourages human contact. The hall of student dormitories is finished in a sort of triangular apse where you can meet a group of people.

PLAN OF THE GROUND FLOOR

PLAN OF THE FIRST FLOOR

PLAN OF THE TWO UPPER FLOORS

ARCHITECTURE:

The most distinctive feature of the plan was the numerous arches and square brick structures with circles carved out in the facade. 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.



The school is designed around the idea of meetings so the library becomes the center of the total complex. Huge open spaces depict the freedom of thought, the principle that this institute stand for.



Even the classrooms have been designed to facilitate students’ participation in the class.



The most awe-inspiring and photographed view is that of the main academic block which is  built as a huge monolith.



The buildings have wide porches and verandah leading from one building to the other.









The curved verandahs and light wells are also working places, calibrated for smaller meetings; it is here that the structure of red bricks  becomes pierced by openings revealing inner walls. The massive red brick structure has large circular openings and arches that give a grand display of light and shade. The circulation spaces not only act as a passage  but also as the areas where the students can relax and discuss their academic problems. Here Kahn was totally successful to create a strong academic environment for learning.

KIMBELL ART MUSEUM

INTRODUCTION: 

The origin of the Kimbell Art Museum is located on the desire of its founder, multimillionaire Kay Kimbell, creating a public place is appropriate for your art collection, primarily by painters of the seventeenth and eighteenth century.



When the Kimbell Art Museum officially opened its doors to the public in 1972, marked a new milestone in the work of Louis I. Kahn and introduced a new institution with a considerable presence in Texas and in the art world in general.



THE CARDSHARPS, BY CARAVAGGIO

In the words of Louis Kahn "The space of a building must be able to read a line of lighted spaces. Each space should be defined by its structure and the nature of its natural lighting. Even a space designed to remain in the dark should be light enough, from any mysterious opening, which shows us how dark it is in reality “

KIMBELL ART MUSEUM

 AMON CARTER MUSEUM

MODERN ART MUSEUM

SITUATION: Located in the middle of a park, the site of 3.8 hectares keystone of the museum is located next to other prominent museums, notably the Amon Carter Museum, designed by Philip Johnson and opened in 1961.

CONCEPT:

As in most of its buildings Kahn managed to develop features that contextualize and give a unique  personality to the project. A good example of this are those covered roofs, which make a fine partnership between the structure and what was once the rural setting of Fort Worth. 



In particular, far away in another time and visible from the site, there was a grain silo, then demolished. Ideologically, we can see and understand better than the overall shape of a grain silo, which consists of a series of vaulted forms separated by a flat surface, which has  been conceptually deprived of their vertical and horizontal has been prepared in the landscape can into the structure of the configuration of the roof-deck.

ARCHITECTURE: 

The museum is composed of 16 parallel vaults that are each 30.5 m long, 6 m high and 7 m wide.



The vaults are grouped into three wings. The north and south wings each have six vaults, with the western one open as a portico.



The central space has four vaults, with the western one open as an entry porch facing a courtyard  partially enclosed by the two outside wings.



Each interior vault has a slot along its apex to allow natural light into the galleries.



Air ducts and other mechanical services are located in the spaces where the edges of the vaults almost meet.

Kahn used several techniques to give the galleries an inviting atmosphere. 

He had pozzuolana added to the concrete mix to give it a warmer color.



The ends of the vaults, which are made of concrete block, are faced with travertine inside and out.



The museum has three glass-walled courtyards that bring natural light to the gallery spaces.

USING DAYLIGHT: 

The masterful use of natural light in the Kimbell Art Museum was  based on collaboration between Louis Kahn and Richard Kelly.



Kahn designed a series of galleries oriented north to south with vaulted ceilings, which have a central slit of light.



Kelly designed the system of directional light through a sheet of aluminum dome.



For patios, Kelly proposed plants in order to soften the light they  project to the interior spaces.

.

VAULTS: 

Kahn's first design for the galleries called for angular vaults of folded concrete plates with light slots at the top.



Brown, Director of Kimbell Art Museum liked the light slots but rejected this particular design  because it required the ceilings to be 9 m high, too high for the museum he envisioned.



Further research by Marshall Meyers, Kahn's project architect for the Kimbell museum, revealed that using a cycloid curve for the gallery vaults would reduce the ceiling height and provide other  benefits as well.



The relatively flat cycloid curve would produce elegant galleries that were wide in proportion to their height, allowing the ceiling to be lowered to 6 m.



More importantly, that curve could also be used to produce a beautiful distribution of natural light from a slot in the top of the gallery across the entire gallery ceiling.



Kahn was pleased with this development because it allowed him to design the museum with galleries that resembled the ancient Roman vaults he had always admired.



The thin, curved shells needed for the roof were challenging to build, Kahn generally referred to the museum's roof form as a vault, but Komendant explained that it was actually a shell playing the role of a beam.



Professor Steven Fleming points out, the shells that form the gallery roofs are "post-tensioned curved concrete beams, spanning an incredible 30.5 m, which "happened to have been the maximum distance that concrete walls or vaults could be produced without requiring expansion control joints



One of the porticos at the front of the museum. This shell, like all the others, is supported only at its four corners, minimizing obstruction at floor level

SPACES: 

In addition to the galleries for exhibitions, installations include the museum's library, an auditorium with capacity for 180 spectators, an art library, a laboratory for conservation of works of art and a restaurant.



The museum is surrounded by a pond that add a suitable environment to the whole ambience of the place.



The spaces of the galleries do not delineates each individual vault shape but is flowing from one to another as a result of the liberation of space achieved with the removal of walls.

 SALK INSTITUTE FOR BIOLOGICAL STUDIES

INTRODUCTION: 

The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is perhaps the most poetic and largest Kahn building in the United States.



Kahn made numerous proposals for its master plan before deciding on the version developed.



However, in 1965, the master plan had not been completed and missing to build houses for staff and other auxiliary structures.

CONCEPT: 

The project did not have a formal program starting to work on, but emerged from discussions  between client and architect.



Kahn managed to persuade the customer that it was necessary to create two separate environments (1) Consists of cells of well-furnished patio in front of a home and community (2) Gallery space with good services.

SITUATION:   

Located in La Jolla, California, USA, on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The city of San Diego provided the ground for the Institute. Salk offered various locations from which to choose and Kahn took with him to help him choose. The site chosen is a great spot located on a cliff on the coast in the area of La Jolla.

PACIFIC OCEAN

SALK INSTITUTE FOR BIOLOGICAL STUDIES

The Salk Institute project went through three phases.

FIRST PHASE: 

In the first phase of the project, Kahn designed a tower that would  be in the labs.



They also placed a building known as the Meeting House, a place to organize meetings, which had a cafeteria and other services.



There would be a recreation room in which workers would relax, placed in the top of the cliffs, like the earlier buildings, and finally a housing placed in the bottom of the cliff.



These four buildings are separated from each other, communicating via external deambulatorios.

SCHEME ONE

SECOND PHASE: 

In the second phase of the project, Kahn reduced the height of the laboratories gave more area and divided into three pavilions.



The Meeting House, recreation rooms and housing were also  placed in the same places that the first phase.



The laboratories, the Meeting House and the rooms are served by leisure deambulatorios field.



Kahn said that scientists need places to rest and relax from work talking about other issues. It is for these reasons that designed the Meeting House, recreation rooms and a small number of studies next to the laboratories.



These spaces have a different dimension to the formal work space, the studies had carpeting and wood, while the laboratories had glass and metal.



Surrounding the laboratories, and the height of the second and fourth floors were the studies, some medium-sized rooms for the rest of the workers.

The Difficult Whole

SCHEME TWO

The Difficult Whole

THIRD PHASE: 

The third phase of the project was the final.



In it, the laboratories are divided into two blocks separated by a plaza.



At this stage there are three floors for laboratories and three mezzanines situated in the middle of the  previous hosting facilities.



These floors are higher than those designed in the second phase, so that they can walk upright, although its use is the same.

FINAL SCHEME

PLANS AND SECTIONS

ARCHITECTURE: 

The major design influence on the structure that consists of two symmetric buildings with a stream of water flowing in the middle of a courtyard that separates the two.



The buildings themselves have been designed to promote collaboration, and thus there are no walls separating laboratories on any floor.



There is one floor in the basement, and two above it on  both sides.

STRUCTURE: The beams of the floors of underground labs are huge, each have a structure that leaves large holes and can lead to "bounce" to be flexible and thus more resilient earthquakes,  because California is in an area of high seismic activity. MATERIALS: 

The highly controlled shuttering of concrete on site creates a sleek surface modulation that sometimes overlap with teak wood panels, giving scale to the courtyard and a monumental sense of grandeur to the entire complex.



The facades are made of concrete poured, and it is more flexible and more resistant to earthquakes.



The wood is teak study, rather sensitive to environmental extremes.



The laboratories have some glass windows and an exterior corridor that passes between them and the inner courtyards formed by the studies.