Courtesy of Bradford F. Herzog copyright: Phillips Exeter Academy

Louis Kahn 1901-1974

Louis Kahn was born in Estonia and immigrated with his family to Philadelphia in 1906. He was trained in the Beaux-Arts tradition of architecture and, in 1932, founded the Architectural Research Group, whose members were interested in the new aesthetics of the European avant-garde. Central to Kahn's architectural philosophy was a belief in the social responsibilities of institutions, and Kahn is admired for his consideration of space and light in his buildings. Among his best known buildings are an extension to the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut; the Jonas Salk Institute in La Jolla, California; and the 900-acre National Assembly Complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh.