Louis I. Kahn: In the Realm of Architecture

This book was the catalog for the the Kahn exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum in 1990-91. The son of a friend just graduated with a dual degree in Landscape Gardening and Architecture. With his class he visited Bangladesh to see some of Kahn's works. I gave him this book as gift and he could not have been more thrilled with my gift.

In one book, you can see through Kahn's famous works, like Salk Institute of Biography Reaserch and Yale Center for British Art. Nice photos and descriptions. This book can be the beginning step for approaching Kahn's philosophy of architecture. He say, "Existence will determines the every nature of things". He used the simple forms to establish a fine-art-class architecture style. Kahn's works could be said as "Simple in FORM, but not simple in MIND." updated: (2009-1-2) I realized I didn't know Kahn much 8 years ago. Form is the final expression of a building. True. But Kahn's buildings shouldn't be read as just FORM or Style. Pictures of modern buildings are always misleading. Not many modern buildings today are pretty in real, when seeing by real eyes. Kahn's buildings are truly "prettier" in real. Just like tasting the real soup, you feel the depth of ingredients (after I grew up a little bit in architecture). I would suggest people to read "Building Art, Building Science" by Thomas Leslie, if you are willing to knowing more about this great architect.

A beautiful book...It's filled with so much information about Kahn's major projects. Interesting, well-written text and dozens of sketches and model photos accompany each major project. I'd never heard of Grant Mudford, but his big, color photos are beautiful. There's a list of all of Kahn's projects and buildings from the 1920s until his death in 1974, and a section of Kahn's travel sketches and artwork. The pages are large, the print quality is impressive, and the impeccable graphic design, by Massimo Vignelli with Abigail Sturges, suits Kahn's style perfectly. And it's a good buy, too.