Louis I. Kahn

Born in Estonia, Louis Kahn (1901–1974) emigrated with his family to Philadelphia when he was four years old. Kahn received Beaux-Arts training at the University of Pennsylvania, under the French-educated Paul Philippe Cret, and then adopted his own idiosyncratic modernism, which would engender the heterogeneous “Philadelphia school.” It wasn’t until 1950–51 when, as an American Academy fellow, he traveled in Italy, Greece, and Egypt that he developed his own singular philosophy of architecture. In 1951 he attained his first major commission to design Yale University’s Art Gallery, and upon its completion gained instant national recognition before going on to do international commissions a decade later. He developed a signature style that was monumental, monolithic and transparent in its functionality. Kahn was awarded the AIA Gold Medal in 1971 and the RIBA Gold Medal in 1972.