In yesterday's post we looked at the power of chiaroscuro effects in art and at how they can be employed also in an advertising campaign for a fashion collection. But juxtapositions such as lights and shadows can be found in other inspiring fields like architecture. This dichotomy characterises for example the work of an iconic architect, Louis I. Kahn (1901–1974).
In his architectures there is something sacred: form and function are combined and enhanced by the power of lights and shadows that sculpt the materials, defining masses and voids, producing a silent monumentality and giving a pensive mood to his buildings, such as the Exeter Library, commissioned to Kahn in 1965 by the Phillips Exeter Academy.
The solid brick (a material made in Exeter itself) of the exterior perfectly matches the Georgian buildings of the school, but the interior of the library is characterised by a contemporary style with a futurist twist.
The main central hall with its enormous circular openings that reveal several floors of book stacks characterises the entrance. At the top of the atrium, two massive concrete cross beams diffuse the light entering from the clerestory windows that inspire respect in the visitors entering this temple for learning.
The main entrance with its simple, pure and perfect (the central room is 15.8 m high, from the floor to the beginning of the roof structure, and 9.8 m wide, dimensions that point at the golden ratio) geometries allows visitors to immediately get the layout of the library at a glance, while the circle and the square also point at the paradigmatic geometric units by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius and at Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.
February 20 will mark the 120th anniversary of Louis Kahn's birth and the Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, has organised a free digital event with his children - Nathaniel Kahn, Sue Ann Kahn, and Alexandra Tyng.
"Kahn at 120" will take place on 18th February to explore Kahn's legacy and his place in the world today (6.00–7.00 PM, EST; you can learn more about it and register to take part in the conversation at this link). But there are more celebrations of the architect coming with the release of the new facsimile edition of The Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn (by artisanal and independent publisher Designers and Books).
Originally published in 1962 by Richard Saul Wurman (a colleague and friend of Kahn's and founder of the TED conference) and printer Eugene Feldman, under the Falcon Press imprint, the book was then re-released in 1973, published by MIT Press.
The volume included a section of travel sketches from the 1950s depicting sites in Greece, Egypt, Italy, and France that reflected Kahn's interest in monumental forms, plus a part featuring Kahn's early drawings and renderings for, among other well-known projects, the sculpture court of the Yale University Art Gallery; the A.N. Richards Medical Research Building (Laboratory), at the University of Pennsylvania; the General Motors Exhibition Building for the 1964 New York World's Fair; and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, in La Jolla, California.
The Facsimile is an exact copy of the 1973 edition and it recreates a sort of symmetry in publishing: the volume (you can check a preview here) is indeed accompanied by an all-new Reader's Guide with extensive archival information, previously unpublished drawings by Kahn and essays from new writings by a variety of critics and colleagues. The Facsimile and the Reader's Guide will be published following the successful conclusion of a Kickstarter campaign, but they sound like a great way to get inspired by Louis Kahn while celebrating his 120th birthday (in the meantime don't forget to check out the section dedicated to Louis Kahn books already available from Designers and Books).
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