A Message:

From William Whitaker

 

Wurman and Feldman’s Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn is a big book ­not just by the measure of its folio size ­but by audaciously and courageously getting you into the head of the architect. This was no easy task, ­and Kahn’s drawings are the key. The superb quality of the printing introduces the reader to the physicality of Kahn’s drawing; the way that he made marks on paper; the pauses when he lifted his pencil to think. It’s all visible—a slow-motion drama of the master at work. And this is the true value of Notebooks and Drawings. By making Kahn’s drawings the focus, Wurman and Feldman invited readers into the actuality of making an architecture of lasting value and impact, and to the human experience of those places.

It is high time for this important book to be celebrated and reconsidered. I look forward to contributing my own thoughts on the subject to the study guide because it gives us an opportunity to delve deeper into Kahn’s thinking and drawings. Kahn, of course, made many more drawings in the twelve years following the initial publication of Notebooks and Drawings in December 1962: the Kimbell Art Museum, the Exeter Library, Kahn’s work in India and Bangladesh, the Korman House, to name just a few of the best-known projects to come. We now have the opportunity to bring attention to the remarkable holdings of the University of Pennsylvania’s Architectural Archives, since 1978 the repository of the Louis I. Kahn Archive; a vast trove of documents, photography, models, and yes, over 36,000 drawings. These are vital resources in furthering the lessons brought forth by Wurman and Feldman and extending them well into the future.

William Whitaker — September 2020

Messages From:

Steven Kroeter—

"Louis Kahn was a genius, a man of transcendent human superiority. 
. . . He left the world a richer place."

These words appeared in an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer on March 21, 1974, shortly after Kahn’s death.
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Richard Saul Wurman—

The word “indulgence” has connotations that people often try to distance themselves from. I feel quite differently. All the work I’ve done has been slathered with indulgence. It has been my modus operandi.  
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Nathaniel Kahn—

Richard Saul Wurman and Eugene Feldman’s Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn was the first book devoted to my father’s art and he loved it.
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