by Jon Lackman | 26 May 2006 | Architecture, Books
Reviewers say the new Louis Kahn tome from Phaidon by Robert McCarter does justice to the architectural achievements Estonia-born undercover polygamist. Dean Hawkes likes the book’s “clear objectivity” and “straightforward way,” while Benjamin Schwarz observes that there hasn’t been a treatment this full since Vincent Scully’s “characteristically woolly 1962 assessment,” perhaps because of Kahn’s distance from the canonical International Style. Schwarz and Jürgen Tietz both note that Kahn’s important immersion in history while at the American Academy in Rome is well-covered in the book. John King contrasts Kahn’s nuanced, “from the inside-out” approach to building with that of today’s image-oriented, media-savvy, Hollywood-style celebrity architects.
