World Famous Comics: Louis I. Kahn: Beyond Time and Style: A Life in Architecture
Louis I. Kahn: Beyond Time and Style: A Life in Architecture
By: Carter Wiseman Publisher: W. W. Norton Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: W. W. Norton Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 288 Publication Date: March 26, 2007
Product Description: 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one hundred interviews with colleagues, coworkers, clients, and family members—and illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs—this book documents the uniquely American rise of a poor immigrant to the pinnacle of the international architectural world.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 Kahn's art, the book provides an invaluable portrait of the man who created it. 200 color illustrations.
Well rounded book, but not enough focus on Architecture Yes, it's a great book, entertaining, insightful and easy to read. Covers Kahn's life, personal disasters, client relationships, etc. and also covers a lot of ground describing his design philosophy and the major ideas behind his buildings. What you won't find, however, are drawings, plans, elevations, or comprehensive photos of the projects. As in most books, Kahn proves such a fascinating character that the exploration of the man outweighs the analysis of the work. This book is more balanced than most, but still more of a biography than a serious look at the buildings that made him famous.
I ordered more of Kahn's work I finished this in 7 days, and I'm not the type of person who enjoys reading (like Mr. Kahn) but I was just siply amazed by his journey. Kahn's life is not that of being born into a prestigious family and leaving a legacy that is famous, it's far from that. Kahn grew in a poverty stricken family and environment. One would expect that he would let this run his existance, but he chose to overcome the obstacles and eventually this launched his success. Everything may seem to go well but his life--both professionally and personal--had many mishaps.
Just buy it, it'll give you a deeper in-depth understanding of 1 of the famous yet complicated architect!
The best choice This is a wonderful book of one of America's finest architects. His life and works all together. Powerful images of Kahn masterpiece's. The text is quite scholarly and informative. Highly recommended.
Highly recommended for any college-level collection concentrating on architectural history. The biography of architect Louis I. Kahn, whose work is now ranked with Frank Lloyd Wright and other notables, represents the first in-depth survey of an architect whose works redefined 20th century architecture, and uses over a hundred interviews with colleagues, clients and family members to reveal Kahn's life, influences, and his sudden emergence as a notable architect. Illustrated with many previously unpublished photos documenting the rise of this poor immigrant, and including extensive family documents from archives, LOUIS I. KAHN: BEYOND TIME AND STYLE surveys his personal relationships, clients, and the extent of his genius. Highly recommended for any college-level collection concentrating on architectural history.
Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch
A Brilliant Architect Newly Appreciated Everyone knows that books can be turned into movies. Less frequently are buildings turned into movies, but that was part of the appeal of the unique 2003 documentary _My Architect_ by Nathaniel Kahn, about his architect father Louis I. Kahn, whom the son did not know well except through his buildings. The film was an introduction for many people to Kahn's architectural work, but other architects had held Kahn in high esteem. The film showed why, and now Carter Wiseman, an architecture critic and teacher, has written an accessible and handsome biography, _Louis I. Kahn: Beyond Time and Style: A Life in Architecture_ (Norton). The documentary excited the curiosity of many who will now want to look at Kahn's life and works in more detail, and while Wiseman's book does not have the personal quest of the film, it does an exceptional job of explaining the life of an enigmatic figure whose importance in architecture is, over thirty years after his death, increasingly well appreciated. Many rank Kahn as second in importance to twentieth century architecture only to Frank Lloyd Wright himself.
Kahn came with his family from 1901 in Russian-controlled Estonia, moving to Philadelphia in 1906 when he was five. He quickly showed skill in drawing, and got into a public art school for talented youths, then to the University of Pennsylvania to study architecture. In 1930 he married Esther Israeli, a scholar pursuing her masters in psychology. They would remain supportively married for 44 years until his death, but he had many affairs and children by two other women by whom he had children (one of whom was the documentary filmmaker Nathaniel) and with whom he maintained a type of family life. The problem in his relationships was not that he was promiscuous, but that his devotions were simply not marital; his widow said that "his first love was architecture and everything else came second." Like so many other artists with peculiar private lives, however, he is best judged simply on his art. That art is surprising and humane. Wiseman's book has scores of photographs of Kahn's most important works. The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, has a gorgeous courtyard encompassing a view of the Pacific, flanked by study towers for the researchers, each of which has a view of the ocean. The Assembly Building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is an astonishing huge crystal of cubes and cylinders that emerges from a moat, with an interior of Piranesi-style complexity that obliges members of parliament to interact with staffs and public. The Phillips Exeter Academy Library is ostensibly a solid masonry cube on the outside, but with huge circular concrete facades inside, a celebration of circular and cubic geometry that allows a public space with vantages for anyone to see what others are doing in the building.
What is wonderful about one building after another is that the brutalism associated with massive poured concrete is lightened and humanized; these are sensitive, even poetic, works, with none of the oppressiveness of modernism. Wiseman quotes David Rinehart, Kahn's friend and fellow architect: "For Lou, every building was a temple. Salk was a temple for science. Dhaka was a temple for government. Exeter was a temple for learning." Kahn may have been Jewish, but he was never observant of religious custom. His buildings, however, show an intense spirituality; viewing even pictures of them, it is easy to understand how people entering them have feelings of awe as if they are entering cathedrals. Wiseman's portrait of the man and the buildings is a welcome tribute to a twentieth century master.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Not Available Comics
Trevor
