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Louis I. Kahn: Beyond Time and Style: A Life in Architecture
The first in-depth biographical study of the brilliant but elusive architect who fundamentally redefined twentieth-century architecture. Now ranked with Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe, Louis I. Kahn brought a reverence for history back into modern architecture while translating it into a uniquely contemporary idiom.
Drawing on more than one hundred interviews with colleagues, coworkers, clients, and family members and illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs, this book documents the uniquely American rise of a poor immigrant to the pinnacle of the international architectural world. It illuminates the richly diverse personal relationships Kahn had with such clients as Jonas Salk and Paul Mellon, and the romantic entanglements that mystified even those closest to him. While celebrating the genius of Kahnís art, the book provides an invaluable portrait of the man who created it.
Drawing on more than one hundred interviews with colleagues, coworkers, clients, and family members and illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs, this book documents the uniquely American rise of a poor immigrant to the pinnacle of the international architectural world. It illuminates the richly diverse personal relationships Kahn had with such clients as Jonas Salk and Paul Mellon, and the romantic entanglements that mystified even those closest to him. While celebrating the genius of Kahnís art, the book provides an invaluable portrait of the man who created it.
- GenresArchitectureBiography
284 pages, Hardcover
First published March 26, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 6, 2021
Incredibly readable and insightful with addressing the projects. Wiseman doesn't atempt to make wild assumptions about what was going on in Kahn's head when designing, but quite literally detailing logistics which I don't see much in architecture writing. Richly illustrated, but I'd always love more pictures :(. Either way some great info about the greatest architect of all time
May 13, 2008
I admittedly took Wiseman's attendant seminar so I suppose that makes me biased or something, and I didn't find too much in the book beyond what I already knew from the discussions and prior exposure to Kahn. But I would certainly recommend this for anyone interested in Kahn as the author takes a biographical approach, attempting to unveil the man as person - warts and all...or burns and mass-adultery as the case may be - in relation to his prior Guru-esque reputation based on esoteric-though-often-nonsensical "mystical" ramblings and, of course, his fairly amazing built works. With this, I believe Wiseman was successful and the book is certainly a page turner - at least for nerds such as myself.
If I had one criticism, I would say that his strategy of structuring most of chapters based on a few of the masterworks seemed a bit too pat and mostly purged out the lesser known projects and how Kahn may have dealt with those (The few single-family residences he designed would certainly have some interesting client/Kahn stories as well, for instance). But I don't know that there's a much better way of presenting this narrative so....
If I had two criticisms, I would say that, whereas the technique of mostly relying on personal interviews with ex-employees, ex-mistresses, and ex-children is what makes this book tick, I also frequently felt that particular quotes, or even stories as told by someone forty-plus years after the fact might be slightly less than pure. This uneasy feeling was exacerbated in certain cases when I would refer to footnotes that merely stated "AI with so-and-so" instead of what I felt necessitated some type of an author interpretation or reference to a secondary source, occasionally leaving me with something like a scholarly raised eyebrow. But alas, Carter's the one with a bow tie, and I ain’t no damn scholar so who cares. It's a great book - order your copy from Strand online today!
If I had one criticism, I would say that his strategy of structuring most of chapters based on a few of the masterworks seemed a bit too pat and mostly purged out the lesser known projects and how Kahn may have dealt with those (The few single-family residences he designed would certainly have some interesting client/Kahn stories as well, for instance). But I don't know that there's a much better way of presenting this narrative so....
If I had two criticisms, I would say that, whereas the technique of mostly relying on personal interviews with ex-employees, ex-mistresses, and ex-children is what makes this book tick, I also frequently felt that particular quotes, or even stories as told by someone forty-plus years after the fact might be slightly less than pure. This uneasy feeling was exacerbated in certain cases when I would refer to footnotes that merely stated "AI with so-and-so" instead of what I felt necessitated some type of an author interpretation or reference to a secondary source, occasionally leaving me with something like a scholarly raised eyebrow. But alas, Carter's the one with a bow tie, and I ain’t no damn scholar so who cares. It's a great book - order your copy from Strand online today!
April 4, 2008
Since 1995 I have been in an architecture book group of friends from Boulder and Denver. The group has waxed and waned and we even had a member die in 2005. The value of the group is that we read books I would not even have heard of otherwise. Some are abstract architectural tracts with all the readability of legal notices.
This book is one of the better ones.
Kahn's story is most popularly known through the documentary My Architect, by his bastard son Nathaniel. This book goes lightly over the ground of Kahn's quasi-bigamy and focuses on his creation of monumental buildings in India, Bangladesh, Philadephia, Fort Worth, and San Diego, among others. The book's main strength is that is is clear-eyed; the author does not idolize Kahn, who is revered in architecture as a mystical figure.
This is also the book's main weakness. In revealing Kahn's may flaws, he books a huge chink into the legacy. For example, Kahn was notoriously impractical and many of his buildings simply did not work functionally or for the comfort of occupants. For example, the Phillips Exeter Academy had to spent $7 million to fix Kahn's mid-1960s library, which was built without insulation in New Hampshire. Ultimately Kahn comes off us as the consummately arrogant modern architect designing his buildings without concern for occupants, site, comfort, budget, or durability of materials. I have seen one Kahn building--the Salk Reserch Center in La Jolla, Calif.--and admired it greatly. He emerges from this portrait as a tarnished angel. And maybe that's okay.
This book is one of the better ones.
Kahn's story is most popularly known through the documentary My Architect, by his bastard son Nathaniel. This book goes lightly over the ground of Kahn's quasi-bigamy and focuses on his creation of monumental buildings in India, Bangladesh, Philadephia, Fort Worth, and San Diego, among others. The book's main strength is that is is clear-eyed; the author does not idolize Kahn, who is revered in architecture as a mystical figure.
This is also the book's main weakness. In revealing Kahn's may flaws, he books a huge chink into the legacy. For example, Kahn was notoriously impractical and many of his buildings simply did not work functionally or for the comfort of occupants. For example, the Phillips Exeter Academy had to spent $7 million to fix Kahn's mid-1960s library, which was built without insulation in New Hampshire. Ultimately Kahn comes off us as the consummately arrogant modern architect designing his buildings without concern for occupants, site, comfort, budget, or durability of materials. I have seen one Kahn building--the Salk Reserch Center in La Jolla, Calif.--and admired it greatly. He emerges from this portrait as a tarnished angel. And maybe that's okay.
January 4, 2010
Very thorough portrait of Louis Kahn. The section on Louis at Yale is hilarious!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews