Louis Kahn

On February 20, 1901, American modern architect Louis Kahn was born.

character brief introduction

Louis Kang was born on February 20, 1901 in Sarama Island, Estonia. He moved to Philadelphia with his parents in 1905. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1924 and later worked at J. Mollett's Office in Philadelphia. He went to Europe in 1928 and opened in Philadelphia in 1935. From 1941 to 1944, he worked in architectural design with G. Howe and Stonolov. He was a professor at Yale University from 1947 to 1957 and designed the school's art gallery (1952-1954). After 1957, he opened in Philadelphia and served as a professor at Pennsylvania State University. He died on March 14, 1974.

mainly experienced

Louis Isadore Kahn was born on Feb. 20, 1901, on the Baltic island of Salema, a small Estonian island then under Polish rule. Kahn was the "surname" of a Jewish family. Louis' father was a devout Jew, and his mother, Bertha, was a member of the prestigious Mendelssohn family. Bertha Kahn was related to the German Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn, who had been living on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea for generations. Bertha's grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn, a prominent Jewish philosopher of the German Enlightenment in the 18th century, settled in Riga, the capital of Latvia. Her father was the famous Jewish Sheila in Riga, and when he passed away, the whole city lit white candles for him. At that time, Riga had a population of 200,000 and was the most prosperous and developed city on the east coast of the Baltic Sea. Although not as famous in the music world as Felix Mendelssohn, Bertha Mendelssohn was also a talented harpist. He was also an admirer of the famous writers Goethe and Schiller, and Louis Kang was under the influence of his parents' culture from an early age. Nature, religion, music and the literary works of Goethe and Schiller were the spiritual food of Louis Kang from an early age. Therefore, after the 18th century, the ideological mainstream of the German bourgeois revolution - Romanticism and Neoplatonism - evolved into Existentialism, which had a considerable influence on Louis Kahn. These influences were present in childhood, and Louis and Bertha's mother and son were very close. Even when he was busy with work in adulthood, he often took time to talk with his mother. This intelligent mother was also a mentor and friend in Louis Kahn's growth.

Louis Kahn's family immigrated to the United States in 1906. The "first generation of immigrants" in the United States always had a strong sense of home country characteristics, so they often struggled to integrate with the new society in this new continent. Different national traditions, values and blood ties made immigrants form small societies linked by their own traditional cultures. In today's United States, driving along a street, the religious buildings of various neighborhoods can clearly identify the denominations and original nationalities of the residents. Similarly, at the beginning of this century, the Louis Kahn family settled in a Jewish neighborhood in the old town of North Feladelfia, which speaks high-pitched Berlin German and Yiddish languages. From 1912 to 1920, he studied at the Ferradelfia Center and then at the Public School of Industrial Art and Design. During this time, his painting skills also improved quite a lot, and he won many awards. Before finishing his secondary education, he received an art scholarship from the Philadelphia Institute of Art to specialize in painting. In his youth, Louis Kang showed extraordinary talents. These natural and acquired endowments were the conditions for him to finally become a famous architect of a generation.

At the beginning of his graduation in 1924, Louis Kang worked in the office of Philadelphia urban architect Din Morritt on the planning and design of the 150th anniversary of the founding of Philadelphia in 1926. In 1928, he traveled to Europe and worked briefly at the office of Paul Crete. The general situation is that of a "quiet" Master of Architecture, unknown. Many of Kang's contemporaries did their best to cater to the new trend of "international architecture". However, Louis Kang did not simply convert to the banner of the modern movement. He was moved by Le Corbusier's work, which amazed him with the lightness and simplicity of industrial materials, abstract geometries, and large-scale urban renewal plans. However, the entire spirit of the Con created by the Beaux-Arts system still belongs to the classical and romantic architectural arts.

Louis Kahn started his own practice in 1935. During World War II, he worked with Jorge Howe and Oscar Stonoroff. Since the Great Depression, friendships with urban planners like Clarence Stearns, Henry Wright, and others have also given Louis Kahn the opportunity to work on urban development design. In nearly 20 years, his life has been an unenviable struggle.

Louis Kahn has finally reached a turning point in his career after 30 years of experimentation and confusion, and the expansion of the Yale University Art Gallery is regarded as his masterpiece.

Louis Kahn's understanding of architecture

1. Architecture will never change

Where is the building going? It has always been a question that people are struggling to find accurate answers in any era. Kang said: "Someone raised the question of where buildings go in class today, and it was very easy to answer because buildings don't go anywhere, and even in the past, buildings never went anywhere. I pointed out that all essence, all future, all past, already existed there. Because he is something worthy of attention, that is to say, all fields of expression can express simply because it already exists in human nature, otherwise he cannot be expressed. Once expressed, he will be indelible forever. Architecture changes, but architecture never changes.¡»

2. Spiritual nature of architecture

Kang believes that architecture (real architecture) only exists in the human mind. He deliberately distinguishes between the concept of architecture and architecture, and insists that buildings are not architecture, because the vast majority of buildings are built for market demand, and they do not belong to the field of architecture at all. Kang has always believed that architecture does not exist, in fact, the architecture he refers to does not have appearance, but only a state of mind. He said: "Architecture has no form, architecture exists. It is a spiritual atmosphere that stirs the mood of the people in the industry, evokes the joy of the heart, and the will to express, expressed through architecture. This allows magic to regenerate, even if it is long-accepted old-fashioned or trivial as a bug." Kang sees architecture as a collection of spirits, existing in the human heart.

For Kang, any building is not a great achievement. Kang does not praise the sublime of architecture itself, because the work is never inferior to man, the work cannot be completed, and it cannot represent the complete desire of man's heart. Architecture, on the other hand, is like a sublime god. Architecture, sometimes understood by Kang as a materialization of Order, seems to be a messenger sent by God to the earth. Kang said: "Man creates an architectural work as a gift to the spirit of architecture. Architecture, as a spirit, does not know style, nor technology, nor even methods, but can only wait for the moment when it can express itself."

3. The essence of architecture

Kang believes that architecture forever exists in the human spiritual world, which is the reaction of Order in the human spiritual world. Then there must be some constant and unchanging attribute, which is divorced from the changing "phase". Kang said: "Architecture sprouted from the creation of one room. The essence of a building is a room. "The shaping of space is also the shaping of light. When the light is blocked and the rhythm is broken, the musicality is destroyed, and musicality is so important to architecture. "The structure of a room must be obvious within a room, and I believe it is the giver of light. Square rooms require unique light to read out the square of a room. "Entering your room reveals your personality and your view of your entire life, and in a large room, it is a gathering of brothers from all over the world, and harmonious relationships replace thoughts. Kang insisted that one room is the starting point of a building. Kang said: "The school first becomes one room, and then becomes an institution." "This is very consistent with Kang's attention to the starting point of things. Only by restoring the building to one room can it be possible to find the starting point of different types of buildings. On the basis of rooms, Kang also believes that the derivative of the market room: "The rooms agreed upon by humans in the market are gifts given to the city by the owners of the houses on both sides of the market in exchange for daily necessities."¡»

Obviously, Kang's "architecture" here is not "architecture" in our general sense. Our architecture often refers to the architectural entity and a specific building. The architecture Kang refers to is the abstract "architecture". The concept is the sum of all buildings and a conceptual existence with all the characteristics and will of architecture.

4. University Church

Kang has mentioned a puzzling parable about the university church on many occasions: the university needs a secret place, which is the university church. We need to design the university church as a place that is not wanted to enter, and students pass by it and pretend not to see it. The university church should preferably have a peripheral cloister, and those who do not want to enter the church can stop here. In addition to the cloister, it is best to have a circular garden. Those who do not want to enter the cloister can linger in the garden. In short, the university church is a place where people should not be allowed to enter.

Can architecture really be a sanctuary that is so awe-inspiring and so transcendent that one cannot easily enter without being prepared? This is Kang's poetic understanding of architecture, poetry, revealing the most beautiful essence.

major works

¡ñ Yale Museum of Art

This is the building that made Kang really famous. This building is still "international", and it is obvious that Kang has begun to change. The focus on volume, the use of columns to divide the space, and the staircase with independent geometric shapes are all new elements.

¡ñ Trenton locker room

In this design, the relationship between "service space" and "serviced space" is formalized. The pillars supporting the roof are hollowed out and functionally used as storage rooms, entrances, toilets, etc. At the same time, the four "pyramids" are unified by a roofless courtyard, and the spatial hierarchy becomes clear.

¡ñ Richard House

During this period, Kang officially applied the service space and the serviced space and pavilion plan to large buildings. But the actual problem was obviously more complicated than imagined. Kang used the practice of structural standardization, and the whole building was assembled with prefabricated prestressed concrete. The appearance of the building is very good, but the actual use is very inconvenient.

¡ñ Sark College

By this time, Kang had given up separating the spatial units one by one, choosing more complex connections and using load-bearing walls to separate the space. Of course, the design still retains the elements of Kang's iconic tower, but the service space needed for the real equipment is provided by the dark layers of the structure created by 2.7-meter-high hollow girders. Kang used a hollow courtyard covered with stones to unify the two long laboratory buildings, facing the sea and blooming flowers in the warm spring. This is the first time Kang has satisfied himself with a work.

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Guang, in Kang's early designs, was only in the experimental stage, and at this time, it officially appeared. In Kimbell, Kang opened a slit in the middle of the roof as a skylight for light. But in order to achieve this big move, Kang sacrificed the authenticity of the structure and the order of the plane together. In Exeter, Kang directly regards the order of light as the order of space. The entire building consists of an atrium with changing light, a dim bookshelf area and a well-lit reading area.

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These two designs are often seen as representative of Kang's local design. I put them together because of their similarities in form and construction. This form, known as "double skin" by Hideaki Haraguchi, first appeared in the unbuilt conference room of Salk College, which happens to be able to adjust well to the humid and hot climate of South Asia and increase the depth of the façade. At the same time, the two buildings are also representative in construction. In Dhaka, he used layers separated by marble lines to represent the concrete pouring process. In Ahmedabad, Kang fully exploited the structural potential of brick, leaving behind the famous "Brick, what do you want?" dialogue.

Yale Center for British Art

This is the building of the last period of Kang, and Kang's achievements here are greater than critics imagined. He jumped directly from Piranesi and Ledoux in the 18th century to La Brewster in the 19th century. He was no longer obsessed with replicating the splendor of classical architecture, but really wanted to follow the Mies' framework to reasonably transform the ruins of ancient Greece and Rome into modern buildings on modern streets. Unfortunately, Kang died at this moment.