Due to the failure of the International style aiming to minimize material as a response to the scarce economic era of Post WWII societies, Kahn disputed the loss of urbanity and fought to bring back a civic realm of the classical tradition. Kahn’s ideal city where by agreement institutions conversed with the individuals to sustain a culture and bring a balance between the crisis1 of flowing versus universal space2. Khan personifies the wall in his writing and in his architecture to evoke the decorous balance between these ideals. His reverie of Mozart3 implies an endorsement of the ancients for using analogy and etymological development to enhance the language of architecture.
This eternal4 ideal of human agreement in Kahn’s trope is adapted in the Kimbell Museum where forms of an institution5 are generated by agreement and conversation between the beholder, the institution and the exhibition work. Rendered diaphanous and insubstantial in his colour sketch of the interior, the human being is overwhelmed by the sublime6 force of light and energy that the interior is drowned in. This is opposed to the classical view of the human body, but rather a reference to the works of Boullée and Piranesi and may have been considered decorous to the institution, encouraging such a relationship between the institution and the beholder.
Anthropomorphizing the wall in The Room, the Street, and the Human Agreement Kahn illustrated his support for classical notions of order. His hollow columns of Albi Cathedral allowed by modern technology reconfigured the classical order into forms with analogia7. There is a layering of the boundary that creates a resonant light, which allows empathy, decorous for religious ritual – both surviving ancient principles, no doubt inferred from his study of the oculus of the Parthenon which tells a tremendous story of light8. Empathy is evident in the anthropomorphizing of the Exeter Library groaning below and dancing above9. This principle is so important; he states that the Human Agreement is a sense of rapport10. Adapted to modern materials and technology, Kahn’s Room is a romantic11 view of classical proportion, not the ‘left mirrors right’ view of Perrault. Symmetry a most important principle of antiquity, for Kahn belonged intrinsically in the body and the cosmos12, and so in architecture. Kahn’s work exhibits the pendulum of ideas from the past in an attempt for developing the future.
This eternal4 ideal of human agreement in Kahn’s trope is adapted in the Kimbell Museum where forms of an institution5 are generated by agreement and conversation between the beholder, the institution and the exhibition work. Rendered diaphanous and insubstantial in his colour sketch of the interior, the human being is overwhelmed by the sublime6 force of light and energy that the interior is drowned in. This is opposed to the classical view of the human body, but rather a reference to the works of Boullée and Piranesi and may have been considered decorous to the institution, encouraging such a relationship between the institution and the beholder.
Anthropomorphizing the wall in The Room, the Street, and the Human Agreement Kahn illustrated his support for classical notions of order. His hollow columns of Albi Cathedral allowed by modern technology reconfigured the classical order into forms with analogia7. There is a layering of the boundary that creates a resonant light, which allows empathy, decorous for religious ritual – both surviving ancient principles, no doubt inferred from his study of the oculus of the Parthenon which tells a tremendous story of light8. Empathy is evident in the anthropomorphizing of the Exeter Library groaning below and dancing above9. This principle is so important; he states that the Human Agreement is a sense of rapport10. Adapted to modern materials and technology, Kahn’s Room is a romantic11 view of classical proportion, not the ‘left mirrors right’ view of Perrault. Symmetry a most important principle of antiquity, for Kahn belonged intrinsically in the body and the cosmos12, and so in architecture. Kahn’s work exhibits the pendulum of ideas from the past in an attempt for developing the future.
1. A. Perez-Gomez, Architecture and the crisis of modern science, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1983, introduction, 3-4, 297-326
2. P. Kohane, The Space of Human Agreement: Louis Kahn and The Room (Paper presented at the international conference of the research of modern architecture UNIVERSAL versus INDIVIDUAL, Jyvaskylä, Finland, August 30 – September 1, 2002)
3. L. Kahn, The room, the street and human agreement, A.I.A. Gold Medal Acceptance speech, Detroit, June 24, 1971’, A.I.A. Journal, 56 (September, 1971)
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. R. Sennet, Flesh and stone: the body and the city in Western civilization, New York: W.W. Norton, c1994, p.293 – 296.
7. Wikipedia, Analogy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy
8. L. Kahn, The room, the street and human agreement, A.I.A. Gold Medal Acceptance speech, Detroit, June 24, 1971’, A.I.A. Journal, 56 (September, 1971)
9. P. Kohane, The Space of Human Agreement: Louis Kahn and The Room (Paper presented at the international conference of the research of modern architecture UNIVERSAL versus INDIVIDUAL, Jyvaskylä, Finland, August 30 – September 1, 2002)
10. L. Kahn, The room, the street and human agreement, A.I.A. Gold Medal Acceptance speech, Detroit, June 24, 1971’, A.I.A. Journal, 56 (September, 1971)
11. P. Kohane, The Space of Human Agreement: Louis Kahn and The Room (Paper presented at the international conference of the research of modern architecture UNIVERSAL versus INDIVIDUAL, Jyvaskylä, Finland, August 30 – September 1, 2002)
12. Ibid.
2. P. Kohane, The Space of Human Agreement: Louis Kahn and The Room (Paper presented at the international conference of the research of modern architecture UNIVERSAL versus INDIVIDUAL, Jyvaskylä, Finland, August 30 – September 1, 2002)
3. L. Kahn, The room, the street and human agreement, A.I.A. Gold Medal Acceptance speech, Detroit, June 24, 1971’, A.I.A. Journal, 56 (September, 1971)
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. R. Sennet, Flesh and stone: the body and the city in Western civilization, New York: W.W. Norton, c1994, p.293 – 296.
7. Wikipedia, Analogy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy
8. L. Kahn, The room, the street and human agreement, A.I.A. Gold Medal Acceptance speech, Detroit, June 24, 1971’, A.I.A. Journal, 56 (September, 1971)
9. P. Kohane, The Space of Human Agreement: Louis Kahn and The Room (Paper presented at the international conference of the research of modern architecture UNIVERSAL versus INDIVIDUAL, Jyvaskylä, Finland, August 30 – September 1, 2002)
10. L. Kahn, The room, the street and human agreement, A.I.A. Gold Medal Acceptance speech, Detroit, June 24, 1971’, A.I.A. Journal, 56 (September, 1971)
11. P. Kohane, The Space of Human Agreement: Louis Kahn and The Room (Paper presented at the international conference of the research of modern architecture UNIVERSAL versus INDIVIDUAL, Jyvaskylä, Finland, August 30 – September 1, 2002)
12. Ibid.
