Editing Louis Kahn (section)

==Biography==

===Early life===
[[File:JesseOslerHouseElkinsParkPA.jpg|thumb|Jesse Oser House, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania (1940)]]
Louis Kahn, whose original name was Itze-Leib (Leiser-Itze) Schmuilowsky (Schmalowski), was born into a poor Jewish family in the [[Russian Empire]] (present-day Estonia). His exact birthplace is disputed, but it is widely regarded to be [[Kuressaare]], Saaremaa,<ref>[http://ekspress.delfi.ee/areen/kus-sundis-louis-kahn?id=69018591 Kus sündis Louis Kahn?]</ref> although some sources mention [[Pärnu]].<ref>[http://en.nai.nl/content/1286439/biography Kahn biography]</ref>

He spent his early childhood in Kuressaare on the island of Saaremaa, then part of the Russian Empire's [[Governorate of Livonia|Livonian Governorate]]. At the age of three, he saw coals in the stove and was captivated by the light of the coal. He put the coal in his apron, which caught on fire and burned his face.<ref name="Scars">{{cite web| url=http://paber.ekspress.ee/viewdoc/48EBEEC2DFC8B555C22571F1003A8A93| title=Kus sündis Louis Kahn?| publisher=Eesti Ekspress| language=et| access-date=September 28, 2006}}</ref> He carried these scars for the rest of his life.<ref>Commstock, Paul. [http://calitreview.com/224 "An Interview with Louis Kahn Biographer Carter Wiseman,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725065117/http://calitreview.com/224 |date=July 25, 2011 }} ''California Literary Review''. June 15, 2007.</ref>

In 1906, his family emigrated to the United States, as they feared that his father would be recalled into the military during the [[Russo-Japanese War]]. His birth year may have been inaccurately recorded in the process of immigration. According to his son's 2003 documentary film, the family could not afford pencils. They made their own charcoal sticks from burnt twigs so that Louis could earn a little money from drawings.<ref name="sons">[http://www20.sbs.com.au/whatson/?date=2008-01-15&channelID=1 ''My Architect: A Son's Journey''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080102073830/http://www20.sbs.com.au/whatson/?date=2008-01-15&channelID=1 |date=January 2, 2008}}, SBS Hot Docs, January 15, 2008</ref> Later he earned money by playing piano to accompany silent movies in theaters. He became a [[naturalized citizen]] of the U.S. on May 15, 1914. His father changed their name to Kahn in 1915.<ref name="sons"/>

===Education===
Kahn excelled in art from a young age, repeatedly winning the annual award for the best watercolor by a Philadelphia high school student. He was an unenthusiastic and undistinguished student at [[Philadelphia Central High School]] until he took a course in architecture in his senior year, which convinced him to become an architect.  He turned down an offer to go to the [[Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts]] to study art under a full scholarship, instead working at a variety of jobs to pay his own tuition for a degree in architecture at the [[University of Pennsylvania School of Design|University of Pennsylvania School of Fine Arts]].  There, he studied under [[Paul Philippe Cret]] in a version of the [[Beaux-Arts architecture|Beaux-Arts tradition]], one that discouraged excessive ornamentation.<ref>{{cite book| last=Lesser| first=Wendy| title=You Say to Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn| date=March 14, 2017| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fj7jDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA56| pages=56–60| publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux| isbn=978-0374713317}}</ref>

===Career===
After completing his [[Bachelor of Architecture]] in 1924, Kahn worked as senior draftsman in the office of the city architect, John Molitor. He worked on the designs for the [[Sesquicentennial Exposition|1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition]].<ref name="pab">[http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/21829 "Louis Isadore Kahn (1901–1974)"], Philadelphia Architects and Buildings</ref>

In 1928, Kahn made a European tour. He was interested particularly in the medieval walled city of [[Carcassonne]], France, and the castles of Scotland, rather than any of the strongholds of [[classicism]] or [[modernism]].<ref>Johnson, Eugene J. (1986). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/766911  "A Drawing of the Cathedral of Albi by Louis I. Kahn,"] ''Gesta,'' Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 159–165.</ref> After returning to the United States in 1929, Kahn worked in the offices of [[Paul Philippe Cret]], his former studio critic at the University of Pennsylvania, and then with [[Zantzinger, Borie and Medary]] in Philadelphia.<ref name="pab" />

In 1932, Kahn and [[Dominique Berninger]] founded the [[Architectural Research Group]], whose members were interested in the [[Populism|populist]] [[Marxist cultural analysis|social agenda]] and new [[aesthetics]] of the European [[avant-garde]]s. Among the projects Kahn worked on during this collaboration are schemes for public housing that he had presented to the [[Public Works Administration]], which supported some similar projects during the [[Great Depression]].<ref name="pab" /> They remained unbuilt.
[[File:Salk Institute1.jpg|thumb|220px|Louis Kahn's [[Salk Institute]]]]
Among the more important of Kahn's early collaborations was one with [[George Howe (architect)|George Howe]].<ref>[http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/25206 Howe, George (1886–1955)], Philadelphia Architects and Buildings<!-- Bot generated title --></ref> Kahn worked with Howe in the late 1930s on projects for the [[Philadelphia Housing Authority]] and again in 1940, along with German-born architect [[Oscar Stonorov]], for the design of housing developments in other parts of [[Pennsylvania]].<ref>[http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/21630 Stonorov, Oskar Gregory (1905–1970)], Philadelphia Architects and Buildings<!-- Bot generated title --></ref> A formal architectural office partnership between Kahn and Oscar Stonorov began in February 1942 and ended in March 1947, which produced fifty-four documented projects and buildings.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Pacific Coast Architecture Database |url=https://digital.lib.washington.edu/architect/ |publisher=The Pacific Coast Architecture Database |access-date=May 2, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=List of Buildings and Projects by Stonorov & Kahn Associated Architects |url=http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display_projects.cfm/23842 |website=Philadelphia Architects and Buildings |access-date=May 2, 2014}}</ref>

Kahn did not arrive at his distinctive architectural style until he was in his fifties. Initially working in a fairly orthodox version of the International Style, he was strongly influenced by a stay as architect-in-residence at the [[American Academy in Rome]] during 1950, which marked a turning point in his career. After visiting the ruins of ancient buildings in Italy, Greece, and Egypt, he adopted a back-to-the-basics approach. He developed his own style, as influenced by earlier modern movements, but not limited by their sometimes-dogmatic ideologies. In the 1950s and 1960s, as a consultant architect for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, Kahn developed several plans for the center of Philadelphia that were never executed.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of the City|last=Caves|first=R. W.|publisher=Routledge|year=2004|isbn=9780415252256|pages=408}}</ref>

In 1961, he received a grant from the [[Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts]] to study [[Traffic flow|traffic movement]] in [[Philadelphia]] and to create a proposal for a [[viaduct]] system.<ref>[http://www.design.upenn.edu/archives/majorcollections/kahn/likpcpmark.html Philadelphia City Planning: Market Street East Project Page<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928000646/http://www.design.upenn.edu/archives/majorcollections/kahn/likpcpmark.html |date=September 28, 2011 }}</ref><ref>[http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A2964&page_number=1&template_id=1&sort_order=1 MoMA.org | The Collection | Louis I. Kahn. Traffic Study, project, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Plan of proposed traffic-movement pattern. 1952]</ref>

He described this proposal at a lecture given in 1962 at the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado:

<blockquote>In the center of town the streets should become buildings. This should be interplayed with a sense of movement which does not tax local streets for non-local traffic. There should be a system of viaducts which encase an area which can reclaim the local streets for their own use, and it should be made so this viaduct has a ground floor of shops and usable area. A model which I did for the Graham Foundation recently, and which I presented to Mr. Entenza, showed the scheme.<ref name="Kahn 2003">{{cite book |last =Kahn |first =Louis I. |editor=Robert C. Twombly |title=Louis Kahn: Essential Texts |year=2003 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UEZo6XU324MC&q=louis+kahn+graham+foundation&pg=PA158 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0393731132 |page=158}}</ref></blockquote>

Kahn's teaching career began at [[Yale University]] in 1947. He eventually was named as the ''Albert F. Bemis Professor'' of [[MIT School of Architecture and Planning|Architecture and Planning]] at [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] in 1956. Kahn then returned to Philadelphia to teach at the [[University of Pennsylvania]] from 1957 until his death, becoming the ''Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture''. He also was a visiting lecturer at [[Princeton University School of Architecture]] from 1961 to 1967.

In 1974, Kahn died of a heart attack<ref name=":0">{{cite news |last=Goldberger |first=Paul |title= Louis I. Kahn Dies; Architect was 73 |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1974/03/20/archives/louis-i-kahn-dies-architect-was-73-louis-i-kahn-architect-dead-at.html |access-date=May 2, 2018 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=March 20, 1974}}</ref> soon after a work trip to India.<ref name=":0" />