by: Jessica Sheridan Assoc. AIA LEED AP
Event: Albi Cathedral & the Architecture of Louis Kahn
Location: Center for Architecture, 11.25.08
Speakers: Nathaniel Kahn — Documentary Filmmaker; Carol Krinsky — Professor of Architectural History, NYU Department of Art History; Robert McCarter — Ruth & Norman Moore Professor of Architecture, Washington University & Author, Louis I. Kahn; Sue Ann Kahn — Musician & Flute Faculty, Mannes College the New School for Music; Alexandra Tyng — Artist & Author, Beginnings: Louis I. Kahn’s Philosophy of Architecture
Organizers: AIANY; La Maison Francaise
Sponsors: AIANY Architecture Dialogue Committee; Champion: Studio Daniel Libeskind; Supporters: Gensler; HumanScale; James McCullar & Associates; Friends: Benjamin Moore & Co.; Costas Kondylis & Partners; Forest City Ratner Companies; Frank Williams & Associates; Hugo S. Subotovsky Architects; Ingram Yuzek Gainen Carroll & Bertolotti; Mancini Duffy; Magnusson Architecture and Planning; Rawlings Architects; Ricci Greene Associates; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Syska & Hennessy; Trespa North America; Universal Contracting
Albi Cathedral (left) inspired Louis Kahn’s design for the Mikveh Israel Synagogue (right).
Courtesy http://www.albivisit.com/eng/albi-cathedral.html (left); courtesy http://www.design.upenn.edu/archives/majorcollections/kahn/likmikveh.html (right)
It wasn’t until he travelled to Rome and France that architecture clicked for Louis Kahn, stated his son Nathaniel Kahn. It was among the ruins that he discovered concrete. And it was a trip to Albi Cathedral in Carcassonne, France, that he began to see drawing as a way to get at architecture.
Built by an Albigensian bishop in the 13th century, Albi is fortress-like with narrow, sunken windows rising between smooth walls on a sloping base (designed to ward off projectiles and ramming). The straightforward plan is that of a large nave flanked by chapels of equal height, and the 78-meter-tall bell tower is one of the tallest in the world.
Contrary to Kahn’s drawings before this visit, his notebooks were filled with sketches that are emotive and immaterial, said Robert McCarter, author of Louis I. Kahn. They show massings, highlighting the space around the cylindrical towers (which he believes may have influenced Kahn’s ideas of served/servant space). The volume seems to float above the ground, featuring the quality of light rather than structure. Individual bricks and stones are not drawn. Instead, Kahn focuses on walls activated by lines of light and shadow.
After his trip, Kahn produced some of his most acclaimed work. The Salk Institute, Philips Exeter Academy Library, Kimbell Art Museum, and Yale Center for British Art were all designed once he returned. The influence of Europe can be seen most clearly in the never-completed Mikveh Israel Synagogue in Philadelphia, according to McCarter. Albi-inspired cylindrical volumes surround a large, open space. The volumes have mirrored arches carved out of them, seeming to have been eroded by light, emulating Roman ruins. It is uncertain whether Kahn would have understood architecture in the same way without Europe, but it is clear that in the drawings that were produced, Kahn’s revelations changed his perspective on architecture.