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Louis Kahn: The Latest Architecture and News

Balkrishna Doshi, 2018 Pritzker Prize Winner, Passes Away at 95

Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi, master architect, urban planner, educator, 2018 Pritzker Prize Winner, and 2022 Riba’s Gold Medal has passed away at 95, in Ahmedabad, India on Tuesday the 24th of January 2023, as reported by several Indian outlets and Architectural Digest India on their Instagram page. One of the most renowned Indian architects that shaped the architecture of India and its adjacent regions, Doshi, who was inspired greatly by the works of Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn, has “combined pioneering modernism with vernacular”. Known especially for his urban planning and social housing projects, as well as his academic work as a visiting professor at various universities worldwide, Balkrishna Doshi has designed, over his 70-year career, some of the most iconic buildings in India.

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Designed by Louis Kahn, the Complex at IIM in Ahmedabad Faces the Threat of Demolition Once Again

On November 3rd, 2022, the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) announced the decision to end the restoration works for elements of the campus designed by Louis Kahn with Indian architects Balkrishna V. Doshi and Anant Raje in 1962. The decision affects the faculty blocks, classroom complex, and dorms other than dorm D15. According to the statement, the institution plans to replace some of the buildings, as the complex is “facing structural damage, deterioration and have become uninhabitable, posing a safety concern for the campus's residents.” This represents a reversal of the decision to withdraw the first demolition plans following global protests, announced in January 2021.

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Why the Drawings of Louis Kahn Still Matter

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

In an age of ebooks and web-first publishing, Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing (Lars Müller Publishers) is a defiant throwback: a lavish, 500-plus-page book, very much an object befitting its subject, whose buildings had a weight, both literal and figurative, that was part of their power and appeal. Conceived and edited by Michael Merrill, the book is both a deep examination of Kahn’s creative process, as told through the medium of the hand drawing, as well as a revealing portrait of the man behind those buildings and illustrations. Merrill is an architect and educator and currently serves as director of research at the Institute for Building Typology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. He’s also the author of two previous books on the master architect, Louis Kahn: Drawing to Find Out and Louis Kahn: On the Thoughtful Making of Spaces.

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Architecture is Human: But Beauty is Found Everywhere

Architecture is Human: But Beauty is Found Everywhere - Featured Image
"Image of El Molo Hut. Turkana, Kenya via Shutterstock

If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture. - Oscar Wilde

Architecture is human. Despite their exquisite beauty,  burrows, hives, nests and anthills are creations of instinct.  Design by humans considers options, means and methods of creation, solving problems of desire, beyond functional accommodations.

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What Bricks Tell Us: A Quest to Survey Chicago's Bricks

In this video, Will Quam of Brick of Chicago takes us around the American city to question Louis Kahn’s adage that all bricks are motivated to be arches. Here, in the Logan Square neighborhood, we find bricks of all sorts, that — in addition to arches — take on other configurations and metaphors to describe their qualities; textile bricks and diapering, brushstrokes of a painting, butter joints and glazes, soldiers and bullnoses.

Lost Architecture: Exploring Unbuilt Masterpieces, Goldenberg House by Louis Kahn

The Goldenberg House was designed in 1959 by the architect Louis Kahn for Morgan and Mitzi Goldenberg. While the house was never constructed, it was cited by Kahn as holding important lessons for his design process that would be deployed in a number of later structures. These lessons are specifically related to how the outside of the house is irregular while the heart of it, the atrium is a perfect square. While we can see this discovery in the plan drawing for the house, there are likely nuances to its design that are more difficult to understand without being able to visit it in person. But, what if we can visit the Goldenberg House as if it had been built? This video explores the Goldenberg House, its history and design intentions, and uses the findings to construct a digital model of the house to explore in real-time.

Yugoslav Architect Svetlana Kana Radevic's Legacy on Postwar Architecture Highlighted in the 2021 Venice Biennale

Part of the Collateral Events of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition, the extensive built work of Yugoslav architect Svetlana Kana Radević (1937-2000) is brought to light from May 22 until November 21 at the Palazzo Palumbo Fossati. Entitled “Skirting the Center: Svetlana Kana Radević on the Periphery of Postwar Architecture”, the exhibition curated by Dijana Vucinic and Anna Kats, aims to highlight the architect’s work and expand her representation.

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Richard Saul Wurman: “There’s a Louis Kahn Cult, and I’m a Member!”

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Dan Klyn, who teaches information architecture at the University of Michigan, is currently researching and writing a biography entitled Richard Saul Wurman’s 5 Lives. It’s an apt title, since the intellectually peripatetic Wurman has had several career incarnations: architect, author, publisher, designer, painter, sculptor, impresario (he created and thoroughly curated the early TED talks). “In a sense, I’m an amateur, a dilettante, I don’t do anything particularly well, but I see patterns between things,” he said to me in a recent interview, although his modesty here seems somewhat false: Wurman is a member of the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame; an AIA Fellow; has written, designed, and published more than 100 books; won a lifetime achievement award from the Cooper Hewitt; and is the recipient of the AIGA Gold Medal.

Louis Kahn’s Society of Rooms

In this video, Architecture with Stewart breaks down the floor plan strategies of Louis Kahn (1901-1974) for how they treat and arrange rooms in servant/served configurations. After World War II showed us the dark underbelly of technology, the architecture that gave us “machines for living in'' seemed misguided and dehumanizing. In contrast to pre-war open and free plans, Louis Kahn considered new possibilities for rooms; believing their privacy and enclosures could work together in a ‘society of rooms.’ Beginning with a close look at the Trenton Bath House, the video includes computer animations, sketches, photographs, and historical narratives to trace the evolution of the room through buildings like the Adler House, Esherick House, and the Exeter library ⁠— a monumental room of cultural memory.

Harriet Pattison on the Creative Process of Louis Kahn and Making History

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Nathaniel Kahn’s 2003 documentary, My Architect, was at its beating heart a son’s search for his father. The film, which was nominated for an Academy Award and will be re-released later this year, explored the complicated domestic life of Louis Kahn: three children, by three different partners, all of whom were kept largely in the dark about the existence of each other. But the film was as much about the work of Louis Kahn as it was about his personal life. And, as a result, it ignited a renewed interest in his buildings, both in the mainstream culture and across architectural academia.

Louis Kahn's Dormitories for the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad Saved from Demolition

As reported in The Times of India, the board of governors for the Indian Institute of Management, in Ahmedabad, India has canceled the proposal to demolish Louis Kahn’s buildings on campus and replacing them with new structures, after a worldwide pushback from the international architecture community.

Dormitories Built by Louis Kahn, Part of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, Set to be Demolished

The board of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad (IIMA) has announced that the dormitories, built by Louis Kahn and part of the overall campus design, will be demolished and replaced. In fact, the administration plans to “bring down at least 14 of 18 dorms which were built between 1968 and 1978" for showing "problems of leakages from the roof, dampness in walls, leakages in toilet walls, slabs, etc.”, according to the Indian Express.

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