Kahn at Penn: Transformative Teacher of Architecture

摘要

Louis I. Kahn was one of the few major modern architects to teach in the university most of his career, starting at Yale University in 1947, and after 1957 almost exclusively at the University of Pennsylvania. In his teaching, Kahn endeavored to articulate the mysteries of the design process for his students, and only later, in his lectures, for the architecture profession. The focus of James Williamson's Kabn at Penn are Kahn's master classes at the University of Pennsylvania, taught from 1960 to 1974 in Frank Furness's University Library. In contrast to most US schools at the time, Kahn brought many of his actual commissions into the university studio, often assigning them to his students at the same time he was just beginning to engage them in his professional office. In this way, Kahn was able to work out his own ideas as to what each project "wanted to be" both at the office and at school, and the remarkable buildings that resulted are the most important "legacy" of his teaching.