other tradition of American architecture: Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis I. Kahn, The

Phi Kappa Phi Forum, Summer 2003 by McCarter, Robert

It would be Kahn's destiny to fulfill the promise and potential to be found in Wright's few public buildings, and Kahn's legacy is that he is the greatest modern architect of public buildings in the world. In addition to the four buildings mentioned earlier, Kahn's works around the world - most notably his Indian Institute of Management of 1962-74 in Ahmedabad, and the Bangladesh National Capital Complex of 1962-74 in Dhaka - are complemented by his great later works at home, including the Exeter Academy Library of 1965 in Exeter, New Hampshire; the Yale Center for British Art of 1969 in New Haven, Connecticut; and his masterwork (if one must choose), the Kimbell Museum of 1966 in Fort Worth, Texas. In all these buildings, light from above illuminates an introverted world within - the architectural definition of public space so powerfully established in Wright's Unity Temple, Johnson Wax Building, and Guggenheim Museum.

A brief review of the major ordering principles that Kahn shared with Wright reveals the true measure of Wright's inspiration for Kahn:

* the room, and its interior experience, as the beginning and generator of all architecture, complemented by the expression of this interior volume in exterior form;

* the central, top-lit, noble room as the focus of all public, institutional buildings;

* design always beginning with the square and cube, the most primary, ancient, and fundamental of geometric forms;

* the concept of "servant" and "served" spaces, where the servant spaces house structure, mechanical systems, and service spaces, so as to free the spaces that house the primary spaces of occupation;

* the plan as a society of spaces, interlocking and interacting so as to make possible both the planned activities and the unplanned meetings that engender cultural and social development;

* expressing "the nature of materials" to develop the poetics of construction, reengaging the architecture of mass and structure (as opposed to the modern cult of lightness), and employing natural light and its shadow as the primary means to characterize interior spaces;

* challenging the instrumental, dehumanizing, and universalizing effects of industrialization and modernization;

* regarding the history of the discipline of architecture as "a friend," as a source of inspiration and principles, not as a source of forms to be copied;

* resolving paradoxes through design as a way of embedding each building in both the unique opportunities of its time and in the timeless and eternal aspects of the human condition;

* and, finally, a profound commitment to architecture conceived as being an ethical framework for the daily life that takes place within it.

STIFLING THE AMERICAN TRADITION

Y;t the depth of Kahn's debt to Wright has rarely been acknowledged in the writings of professional historians, much less in the popular press, and has most often been intentionally underestimated if not entirely ignored. Why is this relationship between America's two greatest architects, and the manner in which their work constitutes an American tradition of modern architecture, so difficult to perceive for both those within the discipline and the public at large? And, more importantly, why has the architecture of Wright and Kahn not had more influence on what we see being built around us today? I would argue that a partial answer is to be found in three successful attempts to curtail the development of an indigenous American modern architecture by introducing a ready-made style from Europe - and in what these events say about the way we think about architecture and its relation to fashion.