This book examines the idea of organism in the work of Louis I. Kahn,
from the turning point of Rome to the project for Venice. It presents an
original interpretation of the work of Kahn during one of the most
fruitful periods of his career, when he was working on a particular
design method based on an entirely novel way of interacting with the
past. Beginning with a meticulous documentation and analysis of Kahn's
experiences in the twenty years from 1930 to 1950, the book sheds new
light on the relationship between Kahn's work and the modern movement.
The arguments are supported by case studies, including that of the
Palazzo dei Congressi in Venice based on Kahn's words (like his lessons
in Venice at IUA, International University of Art, in 1971) and others
as the Trenton Bath House, the Salk Institute (La Jolla), the Kimbell
Museum (Fort Worth), the Yale Gallery and the Mellon Center for British
Art (New Haven) and more.
Unlike much of the by now well-established literature on Kahn's work,
Louis I. Kahn in Rome and Venice suggests that the basic premise of
Kahn's invention is the idea of spatial, constructive organism, which
explains how he created forms that were inextricably anchored in the
past, without imitating any one kind of ancient architecture. The main
objective of the book is to explain Kahn's methodology to architects and
students, showing how he was able to design an architectural object with
the characteristics of the best designed objects: organisms, in which
each part contributes, with the whole, to creating "something made of
indivisible parts".
