About
Louis Isadore Kahn (February 20 1901 – March 17, 1974) was an Estonian-born American architect based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. While continuing his private practice, he served as a design critic and professor of architecture at Yale School of Architecture from 1947 to 1957. From 1957 until his death, he was a professor of architecture at the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.
Early Career
As a child in Kuressaare on Saaremaa Island (then part of the Russian Empire), he suffered burns that left lifelong scars after a stove accident. His family emigrated to the U.S. in 1906, fearing his father would be drafted in the Russo-Japanese War. Facing poverty, the family made homemade charcoal for Louis to use in drawing, and he later earned money playing piano for silent films. He became a U.S. citizen in 1914, and in 1915, his father changed their surname to Kahn.
Education
Kahn excelled in art from a young age, repeatedly winning the annual award for the best watercolor by a Philadelphia high school student. He was an unenthusiastic and undistinguished student at Philadelphia Central High School until he took a course in architecture in his senior year, which convinced him to become an architect. He turned down an offer to go to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to study art under a full scholarship, instead working at a variety of jobs to pay his own tuition for a degree in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania School of Fine Arts. There, he studied under Paul Philippe Cret in a version of the Beaux-Arts tradition, one that discouraged excessive ornamentation.
Career
Louis Kahn began his architecture career in 1924, working on Philadelphia’s 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition and later studying medieval European structures on a 1928 tour. Upon returning to the U.S., he worked with architects Paul Cret and Zantzinger, Borie, and Medary, and co-founded the Architectural Research Group, focusing on socially conscious public housing projects that were largely unbuilt. Kahn found his unique architectural style in the 1950s after an influential stay in Rome, inspired by ancient ruins. His style embraced modernism’s principles but avoided strict dogma. He proposed urban planning ideas for Philadelphia, like a viaduct system for traffic, though these were unexecuted. Kahn also held prominent teaching roles at Yale, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania, where he influenced a generation of architects.