Louis Khan and his famous buildings

Louis Khan and his six most important buildings

Louis Khan was an American Architecture and born March 5^th 1901.

Kahn was one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century.

 

 

Kahn’s design style is always monumental and most of the parts in his building do not hide their weight, materials or how they assembled. He always likes to expose the structure.

He always likes to expose the structure. He is also famous for the amount of attention he pays to the buildings he designs.

He tends to combine with the modernism with the weight and dignity of ancient movements. 

Phillips Exeter Academy Library and Dining Hall, Exeter, New Hampshire

 

Philips Exeter Academy is a private high school and Khan designed the library of that school and the school dining hall in the mid-1960s. The school library is the heart of this project and the main concept that he used was every user were choose a book than they will go near to the windows to read the books under nature sunlight. The strategy that he used to achieve this concept was dividing the building into three layers, at the center is a large entrance hall, and there will be around 250,000 books in the bookshelf surrounding. Khan refers the concrete circle as “concrete donut’’ to protect the visitors from the sunlight and he added bricks to surround the core which contains more than 200 library carrels. 

National Assembly Building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Louis Kahn, 1962-83

 

  

The second one is the government complex that khan’s built in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This complex was structured around in the central point to represent during that time Pakistan was a western part with Islamabad as its capital and an eastern part with Dhaka as its capital. The hall is surrounded by a walkway and there are eight building elements surrounding, the prayer hall to the south which faces the Mecca and along the water there are residences buildings and offices. The pool around the building was created to protect them from the flooding that usually happens in the country.

Yale University Art Gallery New Haven, Connecticut1951-53

 

 

Khan started teaching at Yale University in 1947 and during his stayed he received the commission to plan Yale University Art Gallery. It was an expansion of a no-Gothic style and the Yale university facade was made of brick and glass.

He also used concrete. The striking triangular reinforced was the dominating features of the interior. Also he made the space by creating modules and this art gallery didn’t give you the traditional art gallery feeling but Khan made in a way so that whenever your inside in the gallery you will know where you standing due to the lights that penetrations and focal points.  

Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, Roosevelt Island, New York,1973-2012

 

 

Roosevelt Island is a three-kilometer-long and it’s in the middle of the East River. New York Mayor Lindsay jointly announced the Franklin D. The four freedom park is facing the United Nations Secretariat across the river. Khan collaborated with the landscape architecture Harriet Pattison. The park was used force perspectives and also the gardens are to represent the nature. Khan had few versions of this project but finally he decided to build with a granite stones, a bronze head of president Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Khan’s buildings are work of art and also has a lot of complexity.

Khan went to a site visit in Indian while he was coming back to New York he suffered a heart attack in the men’s bathroom of Penn Station. Also his family was not notified of his death for two days during that time his studio was also in debt. The briefcase he was carrying at the time his death contains designs for the memorial to Franklin D Roosevelt on New York’s Roosevelt island.