Customer Reviews

Louis I. Kahn: 1901-1974: Enlightened Space (Taschen Basic Architecture)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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Although I am a fan of Modern Architecture, I have never really understood why Louis Kahn was one of the great architects of the Twentieth Century. His buildings have never really appealed to me. They stike me as very dense and way too serious. Kahn's embrace of "monumentality", strikes me as antithetical to Modernist thought.

I purchased "Louis Kahn: 1901-1974" because at $9.99 this book is a low risk investment. It is published by the German Publishing Company, Taschen. This imprint produce some of the finest books currently being published about architecture. Typical of the Basic Architecture Series, the book is very well written and includes beautiful photos of the architect's best buildings. It is hard to believe that such an attractive book sells at such a reasonable price.

I am still not a fan of Kahn's buildings but I now have a better understanding of why he is considered one of the most important architects of the Twentieth Century. This book is a good purchase for anyone trying to understand the forces that shaped the practice of architecture during the past fifty years. A good value and highly recommended.

This book has very good textual descriptions. It is one of the best books in the series. It's an introduction, but it works pretty well, with comprhensive text and many color pictures to enjoy. It has approximately 57 color pictures versus 23 B&W ones, excluding floorplans and other presntation work, and the photos of the architect. You get to understand Kahn from this book; it's effectively concise. It presents, first, an introduction about his work, explaining some parts of his life and his main ideas. Then the selected works, each one with photographs and brief descriptions. In the end, a timeline-format biography is given. Very good book.

Full marks to TASCHEN for the BASIC ARCHITECTURE series. The small format, clear text/layout/photography make them visually pleasing and well worth revisiting often. I am buying one each month.