Book: Louis I. Kahn in Conversation

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Louis I. Kahn in Conversation: Interviews with John W. Cook and Heinrich Klotz, 1969-70

Edited by Jules David Prown, the Paul Mellon Professor Emeritus of the History of Art, and Karen E. Denavit, information analyst at the Yale Center for British Art

(Yale University Press)

In 1969 and 1970, Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974) — considered one of America’s greatest 20th-century architects — participated in a series of interviews with a young German architectural historian, Heinrich Klotz, then a visiting professor at Yale University, and John W. Cook, who was teaching architecture at the Yale Divinity School.

“Louis I. Kahn in Conversation” provides the first full edited transcript of these candid interviews, which provide insights into Kahn’s philosophy of architecture. The conversations touch on many of his iconic works, including the unbuilt City Tower Project for Philadelphia, the Yale University Art Gallery, the First Unitarian Church in Rochester, and major international projects then under construction, as well as the Yale Center for British Art, Kahn’s final building, on which he was beginning work at the time. Illustrated with dozens of plans, drawings, and photographs, the book also features an introduction by Jules David Prown, the first director of the Yale Center for British Art, who recommended Kahn as its architect.

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