Louis I. Kahn: The American Architect Who Pursued His Passion as an Art
The IIM Ahmedabad project represented an opportunity for Kahn to explore the diagonal motif as an aesthetic and architectonic geometry, whether it served the programme organically or not.
American architect Louis Kahn. Photo: Gerhard Richter/CC BY-SA 3.0/ Wikimedia Commons
Culture18/Jan/2021
I got to know American architect Louis I. Kahn when I was a student of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania (1957-1963). We had little personal interaction at that time, but several years later, after leaving a meeting together at the American Institute of Architects, we walked through Philadelphiaâs centre city, finally resting on benches near City Hall.
Back in 2011 Benjamin A. Snyder wrote an article in which he stated “Every time a museum comes up with a creative and intelligent way to take advantage of their own permanent collection, an angel gets its wings.” Fast Forward to 2021 and museums around the country are giving out wings in spades. Covid-19 threw a wrench in traveling exhibitions; shows planned for years are postponed, giving opportunity for museum collections in storage to come out and fill the galleries.
Museums are getting creative, taking advantage of temporarily dormant galleries to reintroduce their permanent collections to their patrons. Last October, the Museum of Modern Art in New York did a remix of its permanent collection when it unveiled its new $450 million expansion.
Matt Shaw, The New York Times
Published: 01 Jan 2021 01:57 PM BdST
Updated: 01 Jan 2021 01:57 PM BdST Louis Kahn Plaza on the IIM Ahmedabad s Heritage Campus. (The Photography Club, IIM Ahmedabad/Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license)
A world-class architectural-preservation controversy is brewing in India, where the administration at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad had announced plans to raze 14 of 18 student dormitory buildings designed by architect Louis Kahn and built in the 1960s and 1970s. );
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After a local and international outcry, an online meeting to begin seeking new bids for the demolition was cancelled.
Kahn, one of the most important American architects in history, is best known for masterworks like the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, as well as the Philips Exeter Academy Library in Exeter, New Hampshire, and the First Unitarian Chu
This fall, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art reintroduces a modern Texas artist and investigates how people became comfortable with photography in the nineteenth century. Texas Made Modern: The Art of Everett Spruce and Acting Out: Cabinet Cards and the Making of Modern Photography are now on view at the Fort Worth museum through November 1. Everett Spruce was…
Guillaume Kientz Named Director at Hispanic Society
The former curator at the Louvre in Paris will take on the task of reinvigorating the struggling museum, which has been closed for renovations since 2017.
“My first goal is connecting with the community,” said Guillaume Kientz, the new leader of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library.Credit.Robert LaPrelle
Dec. 17, 2020
Guillaume Kientz, a Velázquez and El Greco expert and former curator at the Louvre in Paris, has been named director and chief executive of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library in New York, which boasts one of the world’s greatest collections of Spanish art and literature but has faced financial struggles and has been closed since 2017 for renovations.