LOUIS KAHN

(American architect)

“architecture is the reaching

out the truth.”

Louis Kahn buildings in India :-

IIM Ahmedabad
(Institutional building)

Jatiya sangsad Bhabhan

(National assembly building)
truth”
 Born - 20, February ,1901
kuressaare , Estonia
Died - 17 , march , 1974
Pennsylvania station , new
York ,
united states
Awards - AIA gold medal

• His father, leopold kahn, was an

estonian, and his mother, bertha
Mendelsohn, was from Riga, Latvia.
• His family emigrated to the u.S. In
1905.
• In 1906 his parents found work in
Philadelphia and brought louis over
there.
• He graduated from the university of
Pennsylvania with a thorough
understanding the beaux art school of
architecture.
• Kahn was trained in the beaux-arts
tradition at the university of
Pennsylvania under Paul p. Cret and
he worked at cret's office in 1929-30
DESIGN PHILOSOPHIES

However, among his most famous

creations, he seems to favors both
parallel and perpendicular lines.

 Through his bold technique, he

created streamline, radical, and
futuristic looking buildings.
Kahn used many different shapes and
lines.
“A building must not only fulfil
its purpose, but be seen to do
so.”
The above phrase describe his sense of
using different forms and shapes in the
building exterior and interior both so
that the function of the building can be
identified in a look.
Acc. To him, buildings were not inert
configurations of form and space but
living organic entities, created by the
architect for human use. Function had
to accommodate itself to the form, but
only so far as the form itself had been
invented from A profound
understanding of the overall task in the
first place.
He believed in individuality.
He said that truly excellent works of
architecture can never be done by
collaborative discussion. For this he
developed his own architectural forms.
He emphasized feeling in architecture
and preferred it over his design,
function and understanding of
materials. “feeling makes form .”
STYLE OF ARCHITECTURE
 Louis Kahn's work infused the
International style with a fastidious,
highly personal taste.
 His few projects reflect his deep
personal involvement with each.

 He was known for his ability to create

monumental architecture that
responded to the human scale.

 He was also concerned with creating

strong formal distinctions between
served spaces and servant spaces.
What he meant by servant spaces was
not spaces for servants, but rather
spaces that serve other spaces, such
as stairwells, corridors, restrooms, or
any other back-of-house function like
storage space or mechanical rooms.
 Influenced by ancient ruins, Kahn's style
tends to the monumental and monolithic; his
heavy buildings do not hide their weight,
their materials, or the way they are
assembled. Louis Kahn's works are
considered as monumental beyond
modernism.

 Louis Isadore Kahn consistently based his

compositions on a centralized enclosed
space surrounded by secondary spaces.
Kahn created a cloistered, contemplative
atmosphere within the walls.
For Kahn it was natural light that
brought architecture to life, the
artificial light had an unvarying
"dead" quality in contrast to the
ever-changing daylight. Kahn saw
architectural elements, such as the
column, arch, dome, and vault, in
their capacity of moulding light and
shadow.
He emphasized on structure and defined
space by insisting on solids . he was
devoted to massive masonry architecture.
 IIM
AHEMDABAD
ARCHITECTURE
AND DESIGN

The campus of IIM is dominated by the

baked brick style favoured by its chief
architect, the famous Louis Kahn. All the
structures are designed to be part of a
whole and looks one integral whole. Other
architects who collaborated on the campus
include the renowned B. V. Doshi and
Anant Raje.
Across the lake , houses of
faculty were arranged in
clusters.
The diagonal layout had the
particular advantage of
responding well to the
requirement that the buildings
be oriented towards the south
westerly breezes.
Kahn sub-divided the
dormitories into 20 bedroom
unit.
Kahn used the local brick which
he found was more effective in
attaching the school design to
its Indian environment.
The building includes free standing lecture rooms and blocks
of faculty office which stood on opposite sides of a great
central courtyard, linked not by corridors but by shady
walkways that offered many places to stop and talk.
Although he had frequently used brick veneer before but he
was committed to used brick as a structural material in
Ahmedabad as he completely studied its properties and
admitted that his arched forms bore witness to the sincerity
with brick.
 The diagonal main access staircase
contained in the version that was
The diagonal main access
ultimately realized in an incomplete
staircase contained in the
manner leads to the important plus 1 level
version that was ultimately
of the lecture halls.
realized in an incomplete
The staircase stretches towards the visitor
manner leads to the important
like a tongue. It leads to the library.
plus 1 level of the lecture
halls.
The staircase stretches
towards the visitor like a
tongue. It leads to the library.
Each four storey dormitory block
accommodated 20 private rooms, arranged on
the two upper floors around triangular lounges
or tea rooms that opened to the outside through
the giant circular perforations.
Kitchen and toilets were contained within a
square tower attach to the long face of the
overall triangular plan.
The lower floors were entirely devoted to
communal space serving as meeting rooms for
student organisation and other activities.
The dormitories had a network of small
courtyard interconnected by partially enclosed
ground floor.
 The dormitories were
surrounded by shallow lake on
two sides with more elaborate
classroom in strongly
buttressed ground floor of the
building adjacent to the water.

Faculty housing
The lake separated the
dormitories from the houses of
faculty and staff providing
privacy for the older members
without moving them very far
from the students.
The 53 houses were articulated
by Kahn's composite order i.e.
The system of shallow brick
arches and concrete tie beams
that he invented for
Ahmadabad.
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY,DHAKA
(1962-1974)
THE MAIN BUILDING (THE
BHABAN) IS DIVIDED INTO THREE
PARTS:
The main plaza: 823,000 square
feet (76,000 m²)
South plaza: 223,000 square feet
(21,000 m²)
Presidential plaza: 65,000 square
feet (6,000 m²)

the main building is at the centre

of the complex. The outer parts of
the complex include the M.P
hostel and buildings for
emergency facilities. The gap in
between is filled with an
intricately designed lake,
surrounding the main building,
and two lawns.
The project was designed in two phases. The first phase included
the National Assembly Building, a prayer hall, and dormitories. With
the expectation that eight hundred more acres would be acquired,
the complete master plan included courtrooms, a hospital, a
museum, schools, and low- and high- income residential areas.
Kahn's key design philosophy optimizes the use of
space while representing Bangladeshi heritage and
culture. External lines are deeply recessed by
porticoes with huge openings of regular geometric
shapes on their exterior, shaping the building's
overall visual impact.

In the architect Louis Kahn's own words:

In the assembly I have introduced a light-giving

element to the interior of the plan. If you see a series
of columns you can say that the choice of columns is
a choice in light. The columns as solids frame the
spaces of light. Now think of it just in reverse and
think that the columns are hollow and much bigger
and that their walls can themselves give light, then
the voids are rooms, and the column is the maker of
light and can take on complex shapes and be the
supporter of spaces and give light to spaces. I am
working to develop the element to such an extent
that it becomes a poetic entity which has its own
beauty outside of its place in the composition. In this
way it becomes analogous to the solid column I
mentioned above as a giver of light.