Louis Isadore Kahn

Louis Isadore Kahn (1901-1974), U.S. architect, educator, and philosopher, is one of the
foremost twentieth-century architects. Louis I. Kahn evolved an original theoretical and
formal language that revitalized modern architecture. His best known works, located in the
United States, India, and Bangladesh, were produced in the last two decades of his life.
They reveal an integration of structure, a respect for materials and light, a devotion to
archetypal geometry, and a profound concern for humanistic values.

The year 1947 was a turning point in Louis Isadore Kahn 's career. Kahn established an
independent practice and began a distinguished teaching career, first at Yale University as
Chief Critic in Architectural Design and Professor of Architecture (1947-1957) and then at
the University of Pennsylvania as a Professor of Architecture (1957-1974).

During those years, his ideas about architecture and the city took shape. Eschewing the
international style modernism that characterized his earlier work, Kahn sought to redefine
the bases of architecture through a re-examinntion of structure, form, space, and light.
Louis Isadore Kahn described his quest for meaningful form as a search for "beginnings," a
spiritual resource from which modern man could draw inspiration. The powerful and
evocative forms of ancient brick and stone ruins in Italy, Greece, and Egypt where Louis I.
Kahn travelled in 1950-1951 while serving as Resident Architect at the American Academy in
Rome were an inspiration in his search for what is timeless and essential.

The effects of this European odyssey, the honest display of structure, a desire to create a
sense of place, and a vocabulary of abstract forms rooted in Platonic geometry resonate in
his later masterpieces of brick and concrete, his preferred materials.

Louis Isadore Kahn reintroduced geometric, axial plans, centralized spaces, and a sense of
solid mural strength, reflective of his beaux-arts training and eschewed by modern
architects.
While Louis Isadore Kahn exhibited a compelling concern for structure, Louis Isadore Kahn
sought to infuse his buildings with the symbolic meaning of the institutions they housed.
Composed of austere geometries, his spaces are intended to evoke an emotional,
empathetic response. "Architecture," Kahn said, "is the thoughtful making of spaces" .

Beyond its functional role, Louis Isadore Kahn believed architecture must also evoke the
feeling and symbolism of timeless human values. Louis I. Kahn attempted to explain the
relationship between the rational and romantic contrast in his "form-design" thesis, a
theory of composition articulated in 1959.

In his personal philosophy, form is conceived as formless and unmeasurable, a spiritual

power common to all mankind. It transcends individual thoughts, feelings, and conventions.
Form characterizes the conceptual essence of one project from another, and thus it is the
initial step in the creative process.

Design, however, is measurable and takes into consideration the specific circumstances of the
program. Practical and functional concerns are contained in design. The union of form and
design is realized in the final product, and the building's symbolic meaning is once again
unmeasurable.
 IIM Ahmedabad – Louis Kahn
• Architects: Louis I. Kahn , Balkrisha V. Doshi
• Commision: November 1962
• Design: 1963-70
• Completion: 1970
• Client: IIM (Joint Venture : Government of India, State of Gujarat, Indian Business
Community, and the Ford Foundation
• Established :- 1961
• Type :- Public Business School
• Location:- Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
• Campus:- Urban, 100 acres (0.40 km2)
• Climate :-Hot and dry
• Context :- urban
• Style :- modern

The IIM is spread over lush greenery in Vastrapur.

It has two campuses, the "Heritage Campus" and the "New Campus", joined by an
underground passage. The IIM is spread over 67 acres of lush greenery in Vastrapur..

He conceived the design as a blend of austerity and majesty.

IIM, Ahmedabad (1962-74) was based on an orthogonal system characteristic of his rational
approach to planning.

The heavy brick envelope of each of the units in that framework, pierced with huge circular
and square openings, is placed in front of a second inner envelope as a means of layering
that Kahn called 'wrapping ruins around the building', to create shaded glare-free spaces.

Kahn relied upon this geometrical arrangement of units to bring order to a large and varied
programme that includes classrooms, offices, a library and dining hall, dormitories and
faculty residences, workers' housing and a market, all the components of a small self
sustaining village.
Kahn's layer provided terraces between the inner wall and outer brick envelope, with
arched openings widened by concrete relieving arches and this interstitial space became a
similar covered outdoor zone in blocks with other uses.

The covered walkways between many of the blocks, while equally protective, failed to realize
the vision Kahn had earlier described as "a realm of spaces which may be connected by ways
of walking, and the walking is a protected kind of walking (which) you consider as high spaces
together with low spaces and various spaces where people can sort-of find the place where
they can do what they want to do.
• exposed-brick architecture.

• The most distinctive features of the plan are the numerous arches and square brick
structures with circles carved out in the facade. The arches were first constructed by
Kahn and later on taught to the workers on site.

• The student dormitories are connected to the main complex by a series of arched
corridors and landscaped courts.

• An extension to the old campus built across the 132 feet ring road was commissioned in
2003 with student dorms and classrooms built in a contemporary concrete design which
strives to retain some elements of the old campus' architecture such as the arches and
exposed brick facades. The two campuses are connected with an underpass (tunnel-
walkway).

• While the new campus does offer somewhat of a stark contrast to the old campus, the
design seems to retain some elements such as the aches/circles and some exposed brick
facades. Kahn's architecture is notable for its simple, platonic forms and compositions.
Kahn design of buildings, characterized by powerful, massive forms, made him one of
the most discussed architects to emerge after World War II. Through the use of brick
and poured-in place concrete masonry, he developed a contemporary and monumental
architecture that maintained sympathy for the site. While rooted in the International
Style, Kahn's architecture was a blend of his Beaux Arts education and a personal
aesthetic impulse to develop his own architectural forms."