Louis Kahn. . - Elusive Kahn - By Joseph Rykwet - book review

Architectural Review, The, Feb, 2002 by Stephen Greenberg

By Joseph Rykwet, Photographs by Roberto Schezen. London: Harry N Abrams. 2001. [pounds sterling]52

When Kahn died there was only one slim but excellent volume by Vincent Scully published in 1962. In his concluding sentence, the ever prescient Scully wrote 'how slow the growth of this tree, like an olive, bearing for the generations to come'. It has been the same with Kahn scholarship. In 1975, after Kahn's death, his colleague and key member of the Philadelphia School, Romaldo Giurgola edited a complete volume of his work. For several generations of architecture students, these texts were almost all they had with which to explore one of the key figures of twentieth--century architecture. These days we are swamped with monographs and vanity publishing. Kahn was the very antithesis. It was word of mouth, anecdote, a guest appearance at the Team 10 Conference at Otterlo, a few enigmatic statements in Perspecta, you met someone who had been to his masterclass at Penn, or you henrd Kahn lecture.

Disappointing then, that Joseph Rykwert, the author of 'Adam's House in Paradise', a polymath and architectural scholar of distinction, gives us no new insights into Kahn in this photo essay to celebrate the centenary of his birth. This is all the more baffling as Rykwert has been Paul Cret professor at Penn in Philadelphia, with access to Kahn's archive and his remaining circle. Kahn scholars and students would have been better served by republishing Scully's text rather than this pot-boiler.

David Brownlee and David de Long's 1992 In tire Realm of Architecture builds the most comprehensive picture of Kahn's life and work, with its critical essays, biographical descriptions, and the most sublime photographs by Grant Mudford.