Customer Reviews

Louis I. Kahn: In the Realm of Architecture: Condensed

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A beautiful book...It's filled with so much information about Kahn's major projects. Interesting, well-written text and dozens of sketches and model photos accompany each major project. I'd never heard of Grant Mudford, but his big, color photos are beautiful. There's a list of all of Kahn's projects and buildings from the 1920s until his death in 1974, and a section of Kahn's travel sketches and artwork. The pages are large, the print quality is impressive, and the impeccable graphic design, by Massimo Vignelli with Abigail Sturges, suits Kahn's style perfectly. And it's a good buy, too.

In one book, you can see through Kahn's famous works, like Salk Institute of Biography Reaserch and Yale Center for British Art. Nice photos and descriptions. This book can be the beginning step for approaching Kahn's philosophy of architecture. He say, "Existence will determines the every nature of things". He used the simple forms to establish a fine-art-class architecture style. Kahn's works could be said as "Simple in FORM, but not simple in MIND."

updated: (2009-1-2)
I realized I didn't know Kahn much 8 years ago. Form is the final expression of a building. True. But Kahn's buildings shouldn't be read as just FORM or Style. Pictures of modern buildings are always misleading. Not many modern buildings today are pretty in real, when seeing by real eyes. Kahn's buildings are truly "prettier" in real. Just like tasting the real soup, you feel the depth of ingredients (after I grew up a little bit in architecture).

I would suggest people to read "Building Art, Building Science" by Thomas Leslie, if you are willing to knowing more about this great architect.

This is a concise and copiously illustrated paperback survey on 190 pages of all major buildings and projects from 1935 to 1983 published under ISBN: 3764359641 by Birkhäuser (Basel...) and ISBN: 0817959641 by Birkhäuser (Boston) in English and German side by side. Following 8 page Introduction, each of the presented 44 works is headed by a description from as little as just a few lines to over a page long followed by illustrations from one to several depending on work's scope. All of several hundreds only B&W (many multi-picture) illustrations - many of them technical (plans, sections, sketches, elevations, etc.), but also B&W photos of a good quality - are well balanced, superbly crisp and perfectly legible. On several pages at the end, there are: a biography, selected bibliography, list of works, etc. on several pages. Like all from the Studio Paperback series, the book is solid among architectural monographs even of a bigger size. Similar to smaller books from the Works and Projects series published by Gustavo Gili (GG) in English and Spanish.
CONTENTS:
7 Introduction
8 Preface
Buildings and Projects
14 Ahava Israel Synagogue, Philadelphia
16 Oser House, Montgomery County near Philadelphia
19 Genel House, Montgomery County near Philadelphia
22 Weiss House, Montgomery County near Philadelphia
24 Yale University Art Gallery Extension, New Haven
28 Mill Creek Public Housing, Philadelphia
34 Weber DeVore House, Montgomery County near Philadelphia
35 Adler House, Philadelphia
36 Adath Jeshurun Synagogue, Philadelphia
38 Trenton Bathhouse, Trenton, New Jersey
42 City Tower, Philadelphia
44 Civic Forum, Philadelphia
46 Morris House, Mount Kisko, New York
48 Richards Medical Research Building/Goddard Laboratories, Philadelphia
56 Tribune Rewiew Press Building, Greensburg, Pennsylvania
58 First Unitarian Church and Community Center, Rochester, New York
62 US Consulate, Luanda, Angola
64 Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, San Diego
72 Goldenberg House, Montgomery County near Philadelphia
74 Fleisher House, Montgomery County near Philadelphia
76 Esherick House, Philadelphia
80 Dormitories for Women Students, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
84 Fisher House, Hatboro, Montgomery County near Philadelphia
88 Mikveh Israel Synagogue, Philadelphia
90 Fine Arts Center, Fort Wayne, Indiana
94 Indiana Institute of Managment, Ahmedabad, India
108 National Assembly Complex, National Capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka
120 Government Center with President's Palace, Islamabad, Pakistan
124 College of Art, Philadelphia
128 Dominican Sister's Convent, Delaware County, Pennsylvania
130 St. Andrew's Priory, Valyermo, California
132 Philips Exeter Academy, Library and Dinning Hall, Exeter, New Hampshire
140 Olivetti Factory, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
142 Jewish Martyr's Memorial, New York
144 Kimbell Art Museum, Forth Worth, Texas
150 Office Highrise, Kansas City, Kansas
154 Hurvah Synagogue, Jerusalem, Israel
158 Palace of Congress and Buildings for the Biennale, Venice
162 Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut
166 Inner Harbor Office and Shopping Center, Baltimore, Maryland
168 Family Planning Center, Kathmandu, Nepal
170 Korman House, Montgomery County near Philadelphia
174 Pocono Arts Center, Luszerne County, Pennsylvania
176 Roosevelt Memorial, New York
177 Location plans
181 Biography
184 Selected Bibliography
185 List of Works
189 Illustration credits

This book was the catalog for the the Kahn exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum in 1990-91. The son of a friend just graduated with a dual degree in Landscape Gardening and Architecture. With his class he visited Bangladesh to see some of Kahn's works.
I gave him this book as gift and he could not have been more thrilled with my gift.