Louis Kahn’s Situated Modernism

Sarah Williams Goldhagen

 Louis Isadore Kahn
•Born 1901 in Estonia to Jewish parents
•Family moved to immigrant ghettos of
Philadelphia in 1905
•Learned his communal sensibilities from his
neighborhood
-Neighbors helped each other out through
the trials of poverty.
•Raised to believe immigrants should
assimilate themselves to the United States.
 The Myths of Louis Kahn
• Conservative thinker intent on creating and discovering
geometric archetypes.
• Kahn as apolitical upon developing his mature architecture.
• Kahn was the most influential practitioner of Structural
rationalism during the mid-20th-century.
• Kahn’s career fell into two parts: Early modernism and the
Beaux-Arts.
• He was a founding father of American Historicist Post-
modernism.
• Kahn walked out of step with mainstream architectural
culture.
 • Modernism: Celebration of the machine
aesthetic, with clean lines, separation of a
buildings structure from its façade, and open
floor plans. Function first!

Question: Do you think people who are anchored in

their community, morally obliged and
psychologically connected to the people
surrounding them make for better citizens?

Philadelphia Savings and Fund Society, 1932

• European modernism: Greater emphasis on social housing.

Bruno Taut’s Berlin-Britz Hufeisensiedlung, 1925-1930

 American Modernism: Used European ideology with greater
emphasis on communal identity. Architecture should
change society for the better.

Jersey Homesteads, 1935-1937 Carver Court 1941-1943

• Monumentality: A visible expression of
peoples collective consciousness.
-living vs. “useless” memorials.

JFK Museum
Vietnam memorial

Question: Which type of memorial do you think most effectively reinforces

communal identity?
 Techniques
•Large scale
•Unbroken surface fields
•Exaggerates Weight

Salk Institute Kimbell Museum

 Provoking Memories

National Assembly complex in Dhaka Taj Mahal

 Jefferson National Expansion Memorial,
1947
• Both “Laboratory of Education” and UNESCO structures use
modernist idioms
• Howe calls for a combination of memorial, public park and
cultural center.
• Kahn admits failure due to a lack of physical monumentality
and development of ideas

Question: Do you think that communal ideology is generational or time sensitive?

 Situated Modernism
• Arrives at his mature architecture after
exploring numerous mediums
-poor upbringing, student, activism,
writings, painting
Full circle- utilized the community to fully
realize his situated modernism.
Situating a person in her society and herself
-aware of her awareness, and of her
communal responsibilities.
Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA
Yale University Art Gallery
Phillips Exeter Academy Library
First Unitarian Church Rochester, NY