Louis I. Kahn: The Last Notebook

Michael J. Lewis

ISBN 10: 303778752X / ISBN 13: 9783037787526

Published by Lars Müller Publishers Mär 2024, 2024

About this Item

Neuware -Honoring the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Louis Kahn in March 1974, this facsimile edition exquisitely reproduces the notebook in which the renowned American architect sketched and wrote during his travels in the last year of his life.Anchored by a magnificent set of drawings illustrating the final design of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park in New York City (1973/74, posthumously completed in 2012), 'Louis I. Kahn: The Last Notebook' provides an intimate glimpse into the architect's mind and design process. These private sketches and poetic reflections reveal Kahn's spiritual understanding of architecture as inclusive of our total environment and shed new light on the architect's influential philosophy for designing, building and conceiving architecture.The facsimile pays close attention to the material qualities of the original notebook, replicating its delicate, transparent paper. Made widely available for the first time, the publication includes transcriptions of Kahn's handwriting by Sue Ann Kahn and a commentary by architectural critic and historian Michael J. Lewis.Continuing on from earlier investigations into the importance of drawing in the iconic architect's work at Lars Müller Publishers, 'Louis I. Kahn: The Last Notebook' replicates sketching in its most raw, pure form.

Seller Inventory # 9783037787526

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Louis I. Kahn: The Last Notebook
• Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers Mär 2024
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 303778752X
• ISBN 13: 9783037787526
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 216W x 152H x 20D millimeters 216 millimeters width by 152 millimeters height by 20 millimeters depth
• Weight: 407 grams

About this title

Synopsis

An intimate record of Kahn’s musings on design, coupled with preparatory drawings of his monumental last project

Published in honor of the 50th anniversary of his death in March 1974, this two-volume set contains a facsimile of the notebook in which Louis Kahn drew and wrote during his last year of life, alongside a second volume of scholarly commentary and transliterations of his musings. Anchored by a magnificent set of preparatory drawings for his monument to Franklin Roosevelt in New York City, the notebook provides an intimate glimpse into private sketches of Kahn’s final projects and his poetic reflections on thematic preoccupations, such as “Silence to Light,” “Form and Design,” “Society of Rooms” and “Desire to Express.” Each volume is in a vellum sleeve and both are housed together in a transparent slipcase.
Born in Estonia, Louis Kahn (1901–74) immigrated with his family to Philadelphia when he was four years old. Kahn received Beaux-Arts training at the University of Pennsylvania, under the French-educated Paul Philippe Cret, and then adopted his own idiosyncratic modernism, which would engender the heterogeneous “Philadelphia school.” His architectural career did not take off until later in life; he attained his first major commission to design Yale University’s Art Gallery in 1951. Upon its completion, Kahn received many international commissions, and he developed a signature style that was monumental, monolithic and transparent in its functionality. He was awarded the AIA Gold Medal and the RIBA Gold Medal.