From previously unpublished material and new analytic drawings this book explores Louis Kahn’s Dominican Motherhouse, his unbuilt masterpiece. Kahn pushed and prodded modern architecture into a crisis that questioned aspects of space that modernism had proudly banished from its program. The Dominican Motherhouse is an exemplary exhibition of Kahn’s relentless questioning of architectural space: seeking the sources of its meaning in its social, morphological, landscape and contextual dimensions. The questions brought up again and again in this book are as pertinent today as they were Kahn was asking them.
Content:
Introduction On the Value of Uncompleted Things
Section I Louis Kahn and The Dominican Motherhouse 1965-1969
15 Prelude to a Project: Congregation, Program, and Architect
25 “Architecturing”: The Designs, April 1966-December 1968
Section II On the Nature of Space, 1940-1974
115 Prelude to a Paradigm: Kahan, the Room, and the Beginning of Architecture
123 Configuration, Movement, and Space: From “Circulation” to an “Architecture of Connection”
145 The Twin Phenomena of Inside and Outside: “Dichotomous Things” or the Theme of Reciprocity
179 From Space to Place: Establishing the General to Revealing the Specific
205 Epilogue: On Good Questions
213 Appendix
Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Lars Muller Publishers (September 1, 2010) Language: English ISBN-10: 303778220X ISBN-13: 978-3037782200
