Honoring Louis Kahn's Legacy on the 100th Anniversary of His Birth

 

  A special exhibition, Kahn at 100: Silence and Light, marks the centenary of the birth of Louis I. Kahn, one of the 20th century's most influential architects and the "spiritual father of the architectural tradition at Penn." His legacy, as described by Architectural Archives Director Julia Moore Converse, is his architecture, his three children, his ties to Penn as a student and teacher and his archives.

Dr. David DeLong, one of Kahn's biographers, said Kahn "connected architecture with theory and history." Dr. De Long, professor of architecture in historic preservation, along with Dr. David Brownlee, professor of history of art, wrote

Penn's Architectural Archives presents the exhibition which opens February 15 at the Kroiz Gallery in the Fisher Fine Arts Building. The exhibition, which continues through September 15, celebrates the life and work of the internationally known architect, educator and philosopher who trained at Penn in the Beaux-Arts under Paul Philippe Cret from 1920-24 and returned here to teach from 1955 until his death at the age of 73 in 1974. In 1966, Kahn was the first to hold the Cret Professorship of Architecture, created by a bequest from his own teacher.

The exhibition features nearly 100 master drawings, models, sketchbooks, manuscripts, photographs and memorabilia from the Louis I. Kahn Collection at Penn, on permanent loan from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. The extent of the Collection--preserved by the Commonwealth's passage of a bill in 1975 that authorized the purchase--is vast: including nearly 6,500 sketches, more than 15,000 photographs, 100 models, 150 boxes of correspondence and project files, Kahn's personal library, awards and memorabilia.

Penn was considered the appropriate repository since Kahn had not only inspired a generation of architects in his classroom studio environment but had also designed for the University one of his most significant works--the Richards Building, on Hamilton Walk--which was immediately acclaimed "for a bold design that brilliantly redefined modern architecture."

GSFA's legandary Dean G. Holmes Perkins hired Kahn in 1955 and in 1979 he oversaw the installation of the Kahn Collection and directed the organization and cataloguing of the numerous materials. At 96, he is now professor of architecture and urbanism.

Kahn was born in 1901 on the Baltic island of Osel, Estonia and came to America in 1905. He studied at Philadelphia's Central High before coming to Penn for his bachelor's degree.


Almanac, Vol. 47, No. 22, February 13, 2001

| FRONT PAGE | CONTENTS | JOB-OPS | CRIMESTATS | SENATE: Economic Status of the Faculty | COUNCIL: Call for Volunteers | ALMANAC GUIDELINES | KAHN's 100th CELEBRATION | TALK ABOUT TEACHING ARCHIVE | BETWEEN ISSUES | FEBRUARY at PENN |