Louis Kahn
Louis Kahn
Louis Isadore Kahnwas an American architect, based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. While continuing his private practice, he served as a design critic and professor of architecture at Yale School of Architecture from 1947 to 1957...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionArchitect
Date of Birth20 February 1901
CountryUnited States of America
thoughtful space architecture
Architecture is the thoughtful making of space
want bricks
Even a brick wants to be something
air light shadow
All material in nature, the mountains and the streams and the air and we, are made of Light which has been spent, and this crumpled mass called material casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to Light.
wall artist space
Greek architecture taught me that the column is where the light is not, and the space between is where the light is. It is a matter of no-light, light, no-light, light. A column and a column brings light between them. To make a column which grows out of the wall and which makes its own rhythm of no-light, light, no-light, light: that is the marvel of the artist.
boys cities availability
A city is the place of availabilities. It is the place where a small boy, as he walks through it, may see something that will tell him what he wants to do his whole life.
beautiful men thinking
Also marvelous in a room is the light that comes through the windows of a room and that belongs to the room. The sun does not realize how beautiful it is until after a room is made. A man’s creation, the making of a room, is nothing short of a miracle. Just think, that a man can claim a slice of the sun.
sides sun architecture
The sun never knew how great it was until it hit the side of a building.
mean architecture building
A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable.
dark light cracks
Even a room which must be dark needs at least a crack of light to know how dark it is.
light quality today
Architects in planning rooms today have forgotten their faith in natural light. Depending on the touch of a finger to a switch, they are satisfied with static light and forget the endlessly changing qualities of natural light, in which a room is a different room every second of the day.
light world born
We are born of light. The seasons are felt through light. We only know the world as it is evoked by light.
inspirational motivational death
Design is not making beauty, beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration, love.
light shadow made
I sense Light as the giver of all presences, and material as spent Light. What is made by Light casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to Light.
thinking use arches
You say to a brick, 'What do you want, brick?' And brick says to you, 'I like an arch.' And you say to brick, 'Look, I want one, too, but arches are expensive and I can use a concrete lintel.' And then you say: 'What do you think of that, brick?' Brick says: 'I like an arch.'