Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes PDF
Preview Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes
LOUIS I. KAHN THE NORDIC LATITUDES Other Titles in This Series Interpreting Kigali, Rwanda: Architectural Inquiries and Prospects for a Developing African City Shadow Patterns: Reflections on Fay Jones and His Architecture Barns and Portrait Paintings Of the Soil: Photographs of Vernacular Architecture and Stories of Changing Times in Arkansas Architects of Little Rock: 1833–1950 Just Below the Line: Disability, Housing, and Equity in the South Sacred Spaces: The Architecture of Fay Jones: The Life of AIA Gold Medal–Winning Architect Fay Jones (HD DVD) LOUIS I. KAHN THE NORDIC LATITUDES Per Olaf Fjeld and Emily Randall Fjeld UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS PRESS Fayetteville 2019 Copyright © 2019 by The University of Arkansas Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1-68226-112-5 eISBN: 978-1-61075-681-5 23 22 21 20 19 5 4 3 2 1 • The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Control Number: 2019939498 CONTENTS Foreword vii Acknowledgments xi Introduction xiii NORDIC CONNECTIONS 1 Nordic Connections 3 THE MASTERCLASS 2 The Masterclass 101 3 My Masterclass Notebooks 157 4 Grounding the Vocabulary 177 THE WAY THE EARTH MOVES 5 Ten Years Later: Investigations into Mass 227 6 Ten Years Later: Encounters at the Kahn Collection 253 7 The Way the Earth Moves 269 Notes 299 Index 301 v FOREWORD The Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, in collaboration with the University of Arkansas Press, is pleased to bring forward into publication Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes, authored by the Norwegian architect and educator Per Olaf Fjeld together with his wife and partner, the American-born artist Emily Randall Fjeld. This book builds upon the series of publications that the Fay Jones School has undertaken over the last ten years in partnership with the University of Arkansas Press—a collaboration initiated by Professor Jeff Shannon during his tenure as dean and developed subsequently in his role as executive edi- tor of the collaborative publications. Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes expands this legacy and, by extension, celebrates the school’s namesake, the internationally renowned architect and educator Fay Jones, himself a former dean of the school. The example Jones set—inter- twining the ambitions and ideals of professional practice with the ambitions and ideals of a professional education in architecture—remains fundamental to the perspectives, curricula, and overall educational character of the school that now proudly bears his name. Highlighting the life and work of another internationally renowned architect, Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes may be seen as an emblem of the school and of the school’s place in architecture culture more generally. The book at hand, whose diverse components coalesced over many years, weaves together cultural histories, architectural histories, and personal histories—all intertwined by the exceptional interpretive voice of Per Olaf Fjeld. Fjeld presents an explicit agenda from the outset: to position, or indeed, reposition, the thought and work of Louis Kahn within a dis- tinctly Nordic context, in a Nordic “light,” so to speak, at a Nordic latitude. This, of course, is a counter-history of sorts, given that Kahn is most often presented as an architect shaped more by his exposure to the Mediterranean “light”—the culture of forms and principles to be found especially at the latitudes of Rome and Athens—rather than that of sixty degrees north, the lat- itude of Kahn’s birthplace in Estonia. Such a proposition is one of effective surprise and one that, at the very least, asks the reader to question their preconceptions and the conventional presentations of Kahn. While Kahn’s identity as a “man of the North” may well have been intimated by Kahn to the then-young Norwegian during his first days as a student in the now-fabled masterclass studio at the University of Pennsylvania, its full significance only emerged for Fjeld as he moved through his own development as an architect and educator in the years that followed. Fjeld’s understanding of Kahn in a Nordic light was illuminated by his nearly lifelong engage- ment with the Pritzker Prize–winning Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn. But perhaps even more significantly, Fjeld came to realize that Kahn’s life and work paralleled those of Fehn’s vii mentor, Arne Korsmo, a Norwegian architect and educator whose legacy has generally been underappreciated in scholarship, especially within English-language architecture circles. The year that Fjeld spent in Kahn’s masterclass studio can now be understood retrospectively as “the last masterclass,” but for the author this period was already suffused at the time with wonder. The history and atmosphere of that magical year is embodied by the talismanic pres- ence in this book of Fjeld’s journals, capturing his daily encounters with Kahn. All of this to say that Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes narrates a fascinating set of overlapping, even laminated, histories: the life and work of Louis Kahn set within the longer, rich history of Nordic architecture; the experience of Per Olaf Fjeld and his classmates in the Kahn masterclass studio (in particular, the day-to-day pedagogy of the architect in concert with his collaborators); and Per Olaf Fjeld’s work in education and in architecture culture more generally, extending the legacy of Kahn into the contemporary moment. Throughout this account—populated by the vital figures of Kahn, Sverre Fehn, Arne Korsmo, Giancarlo De Carlo, and so many others of this important period of late modernism—the voice of Per Olaf Fjeld remains constant: it is the voice of a passionate, reflective educator, always search- ing for more and more complete reconciliations with his own experiences, with the legacies of his mentors, and with his deeply felt ethical obligations to architecture. A book of this character is ever a collaborative project, and there are numerous individu- als to acknowledge with gratitude. Here in Fayetteville, Mike Bieker, director and publisher of the University of Arkansas Press, and David Scott Cunningham, editor-in-chief at the press, understood its value immediately and guided its progress. Tim Walker, principal of DoXA Design, established the initial cover and page design templates, giving visual definition and refinement to the book’s intentions at a critical juncture in development. From these initial design concepts, Liz Lester, designer at the press, developed and extended this visual char- acter to encompass all aspects of the book’s design and typeset the entire manuscript. Molly Rector, project editor at the press, oversaw the production process. At the Fay Jones School, the book took shape with the encouragement and editorial observations of Professor Jeff Shannon, and with insight and counsel from Fay Jones Distinguished Visiting Professor Juhani Pallasmaa. Lane Schmidt, executive assistant to the dean, coordinated editorial, design, and production meetings. The final manuscript emerged through the tireless, attentive, and sensi- tive efforts of Janet Foxman, the school’s special publications editor, who then led the editorial and production process through to completion. This book has a personal significance for me. In the spring of 1984, while serving as coeditors of Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal, Issue 24, my colleague David viii
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