Salk Institute for Biological Studies - Louis Kahn

1959-1967 Salk Institute for Biological Studies

La Jolla, California Louis Kahn

Juan Manuel Gatica

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Fig. 1

Introduction A single piece of art can become representative of an artist when it is able to embody most of the personal ideas developed during their professional career, and also be able to innovate and stand out from the contemporary ideals. Every architect dream is to create a building that represents them and become emblematic of a period. Louis Kahn apart from an architect was also considered an artist. He was able to integrate to his designs expressions, experiences and emotions typical from artists, such as monumentality, light, silence and inspiration, between others. His work offered new intellectual possibilities to the younger generation of architects searching for alternatives to the hegemonic International Style.

The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, designed by Louis Kahn in 1959 represents most of his ideas developed during his career, and it is also known as being the most emblematic building he ever designed. In this building Kahn establishes a new meaning of monumentality, form, function and tectonic orders, but above all, it includes all of the social and cultural meanings of his architecture.

History / Context Kahn was commissioned to design this building by Dr. Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio Vaccine. The Salk Institute is a complex of laboratories located in La Jolla, California. Composed by a series of elegant concrete structures of severe and regular forms in the exterior, it represents a simple, spacious and pure architecture that frames a marvelous view to the Pacific Ocean. There are three axioms with which Kahn accounts when the project is commissioned: interior flexibility, low maintenance cost, and that the design was “worthy of a visit by Picasso�.

Louis Kahn is one of the central architects in the transition period from the Modernism to Postmodernism. In this period many ideas that defer from the previous are consolidated and Kahn is one of the main actors of this transition. He proposes a complete revision of the postulates of modernity that were being used uncritically. By definition, an architect must be critical and question every aspect and decisions at the time of designing, and Kahn was the kind of architect that questioned every preliminary decision before getting to the final design.

Kahn was born in 1901 in Estonia, and died in 1974. In 1905 he emigrates with his family to the US. He studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. At that time the Architecture program was rigorously influenced by Ecole de Beaux Arts, which was the most prestigious, faithful model of the teaching method of France.

He graduated in 1924 and in 1928 traveled back to Estonia to visit his relatives.

There he made his first contact with the modern movement in a trip to Berlin, but also visited the ancient Greek, Egyptian and Roman architecture. This trip was very important for the consolidation of his thoughts. For Kahn, ancient architecture, especially Greek, was the origin of architecture, where the concepts of monumentality and spirituality where first used. After returning to the US he started working in the office of Paul Cret. In 1947 he started teaching at Yale University, rejecting an offer from Harvard University because he denied leaving Philadelphia. Later, in 1951 he won his first big commission – an extension to the Yale Art Gallery. This commission offered Kahn the chance to experiment with the ideas he got from his trip to Europe, where he got convinced about the fact that modern architecture lacked the monumental and spiritual qualities that the ancient buildings have1.

Kahn was convinced that modern architecture has to be a combination of the concepts of monumentality and spirituality but using current materials and techniques. With the excellent use of brick, concrete and wood, Kahn was able to achieve the architectural expressions, qualities and details he wanted in order to create a monumental and spiritual architecture. Light was also a very important actor in Kahn interior spaces. By manipulating the light using complex architectural techniques, he was able to create unworldly interiors, in order to increase the spiritual characteristics of them. His work and his person gain international prestige and knowledge in the 50s. With his work and thoughts, he made rethink the architecture fundaments of the time. Kahn recovers a series of attributes that had been discarded by architecture, but they had always belonged to it. Without representing a step back, he retrieves history and memory to go forward.

From the 1951-53 Yale Art Gallery extension, to consequent projects such as the Richards Medical Towers (1957-1962) in Philadelphia, Kahn combined different concepts to achieve his objectives for monumentality, spirituality, form and light characteristics of his spaces. By the time he began designing the 1959-67 Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, Kahn had already mastered his techniques, in order to build his masterwork.

Louis Kahn and Jonas Salk To fully understand a project is very important to understand the relation between the client and the architect, so then it is possible to differentiate between architects decisions and client’s demands. Jonas Salk, after his successful discovery of the polio vaccine, felt the necessity to create a new laboratories facility where he can create a space where science and humanities can live together. For that he envisioned the construction of a place that permits the exchange of ideas between scientists and artists from other fields of the culture. In Salk’s mind was the idea of creating a building that was worth of a visit of Picasso, a common space for artists, not a scientific outpost. Salk himself was not a passive client, he insisted in exploring the human implications in science, so they could be reflected in the building. He understood that medical investigation didn’t belong to the medicine or science, but to the society. So the investigation facility should be a big agora of

cultural exchange that leads to the progress of the society. Jonas Salk contacted Louis Kahn after the completion of the Yale Art Gallery and the AFL building. He transmitted all his concerns and ideas to Kahn. At one point of the design process, Salk highlighted one idea that at the end it will translate into the project: “science discovers what is already there, while the artist creates what does not yet exist”.

The other two important demands form Jonas Salk to Kahn where: the creation of a flexible interior space for scientists to work comfortably, and also create a building that will have low maintenance cost.

The Design In his first croquis, Kahn does a tripartite division of the complex, one part for the laboratories, another for scientists residences, and the last one for a conference center (fig. 2). Salk praised the idea, but he declined it because each building was not in contact with each other, as he did for the Richards Laboratories. Salk’s idea of laboratories buildings must include a practical free and open plan. Kahn had the idea that the free plan was a cliché and was démodé. Following the development of the idea of the tripartite division of the spaces, Salk suggested the idea that the scientific space was inspired by the San Francesco d’Assisi Monastery, following the distribution of it with a big central plaza where social gathering would happen, idea that Kahn accepted immediately. Between 1960 and 1962, the laboratories where developed in four buildings with two floors each, based in the idea of two folded slabs with box girders that provided a human accessible space between the slabs, where ventilation, water installations and other service installations went through.

Although the projected laboratories where very flexible spaces, according to the idea of the client, they didn’t house all of the research activity that was needed.

Kahn proposed the construction of small studios for the scientific masters, appended to the open plan laboratories. These offices where grouped in a tower form, in both sides of the original designed plaza. With this design decision, Kahn achieved what he wanted: the functional individualization of space, in which apart from creating two separate spaces in the same open plan, he achieved the idea imposed by Salk of creating a monastic ambient around the studio cells with the annexed studios.

Fig. 2

The residences and meeting center were never built. The meeting center was the place that Kahn expected to reach its highest artistic expression. In it he consummated the new union of the two cultures: a place where Picasso or other non-scientific people with high reputation come into contact with the scientific community. It was a space where Kahn did not want to establish conventional labels. Salk and Kahn expanded this project with the purpose of introducing everything seemed useful to them, which led to the emergence of a library, rooms for singles scientists, and all kinds of facilities to hold social events and occasional lectures.

In 1962, just before the start of the construction, Salk had a change of mind. After signing the contract, Salk realized that the solution to divide the laboratories into four parts and distribute the buildings in pairs in two different squares did not give the sense of integration he intended to attribute to the complex. It seemed wiser to build two buildings facing each other, sharing the same common space. After an initial refusal by Kahn, he soon realized the logic applied by Salk for the new proposed distribution. Finally Kahn admitted that the two gardens were not consistent with the final intended concept. Kahn finally expressed that "one garden is better than two, so that the laboratories and studios share the same space."2 Once constructed, the three floor laboratories kept much of the functional and structural logic of the two floor initial design. Although the new beam system was less developed, copying the system introduced by Kahn in the AFL building with Vierendeel beams, it also allowed the passage of service installations. The studios remained clearly defined, grouped into towers rising on both sides of the courtyard with bridges that connected them to the laboratories.

The studios were widely admired, thanks to these monastic cells with views to the courtyard, Kahn was able to express his feelings in the project, which was not possible in parts of the building such as the laboratories, loaded with technical and programmatic requirements. These small studios with domestic character, facing the sun and suspended on the cliff top, kept some similarity with beach houses. To illuminate the laboratories that were below the level of the plaza, Kahn created a series of long sunken patios on both sides of the central esplanade of the project.

In connection with its scale and the presence of the bridges linking the laboratories with the studios, these spaces are considered more like streets rather than light sources.

Plaza / Courtyard The conformation of the central courtyard was postponed until near the end of the design. This central space, almost the same as the axis of classic architecture, required special attention. Like the best works of the beaux-arts, the primary ambiguity complicated this apparent simplicity: the absence of any architectural detail on the axis.

Influenced by monastic imagery, Kahn imagined this space as a place full of trees and plants. As can be seen in one of the initial sketches dating from 1962 (fig. 3),

Kahn imagined a garden like space. An open resting area where researchers and scientists could enjoy their free time or even hold informal meetings. He clearly imagined a vegetated space, in contrast to the cold and hard looking image of the laboratory blocks. The architect experimented directly on the soil, seeking the most suitable plant species, but as the rest of the work advanced he was still not fully convinced of the final solution.

Fig. 3

The artificial aspect of that idea weighed in his conscious until 1965, when Kahn visited the home of Luis Barragán, in Mexico City. He was impressed with the austere and careful vocabulary Barragán used in all of his work. From that meeting, Kahn invited one year later Barragán to go to the construction site to give his advice about the plastic possibility of the patio. There are no better words than Kahn’s in person to express the impression that Barragán left on him.

When he [Barragán] entered the space, he went to the concrete walls and touched them and expressed his love for them, and then he said as he looked across the space and towards the sea. “I would not put a tree or blade of grass in this space. This should be a plaza of stone, not a garden.” I [Kahn] looked at Dr. Salk and he at me and we both felt this was deeply right. Feeling our approval, he added joyously, “If you make this a plaza, you will gain a façade–a façade to the sky.”3 This solution presented to Jonas Salk and Louis Kahn by Luis Barragán (fig. 4) as a “plaza for every nation”, was accepted immediately, although the initial proposal was to create a public place, not a private courtyard.4 The minimalist water channel in the axis of the plaza, which appeared in Kahn’s preliminary sketches, is stylized to the limit to turn it into an infinite and thin line that seems to finish pouring water into the pacific ocean. In the words of Barragán:

… A plaza will unite the two buildings and at the end, you will see the line of the sea. Robert Venturi called this classic and powerful axis of symmetry, open at its two ends to the east and west, toward the land and the sea, an “important gesture within an American landscape”, a symbolic image “that frame the sea and the land, where the old west finishes and the new eastern frontier begins” 5 This is a clear reference of the Mediterranean gardens of the Alhambra in Granada, visited by Luis Barragán in 1924, which highly influenced over his creations for gardened spaces.6

Fig. 4

Materials Kahn was dedicated to teaching in the University of Pennsylvania while serving as an architect. His classes significantly pondered the material aspects of architecture and alleged as necessary the communication between architecture and materials to solidify ideas, to capture occurrences.

The constant concerns of Kahn for materials became a passion for taking care of every detail and get the perfect finish. Concrete reached the category of elegant material, to the point that eclipsed the beauty of travertine marble used in the pavement of the courtyard. To achieve these finishes, Kahn created an office in charge of reviewing the processes of dosing, color, compaction and drying of concrete. The modulation of the board and careful placement of formwork was also meticulously calculated to achieve the desired surfaces and textures. In this same project, the emergence of a new vocabulary by Kahn to create doors and shutters built with teak wood paneling is highlighted. The use of teak wood is very common in Kahn’s work because of its minimal care and maintenance needed.

In the Salk Institute, concrete and wood, often conceived as materials with opposite characteristics, complement each other. Both materials seemed provocatively detailed, moving between abstraction and structural description, but neither one

nor the other could pass unnoticed. Both materials have an unfinished nature, but the meticulous detail work done make them look like a perfect finished unique piece.

The building shows the personality of materials itself. The facade and structure of this complex is concrete. If you look closely, it is possible to notice the marks left in the concrete when being applied. Many architects seek to minimize the evidence of such marks by covering them. In the case of Louis Kahn this “imperfections� were not covered. The marks on the concrete are evidence of the constructive process that led to the Salk Institute look and feel like it is now. These marks reflect the history of the spaces, because they express what had to happen to show why a wall is where it is. Coating the walls or facades would be denying the history of the construction. That is why for Kahn, the marks in the finishing of the Salk Institute (and his other projects) incorporate such importance. Instead of being characterized as a construction failure, these details "humanize" the project. With this perception it is possible to notice that sudden marks in the material are a personification in the given space.

It is difficult to tell the greatness of the work of Louis Kahn without focusing on the materiality of his projects. Material was clearly a key point in all his proposals. More than a requirement, Kahn saw materiality as an opportunity of own manifestation.

Much of what can be seen in the work of Kahn is ultimately a reflection of what he was and what he thought.

Building - Techniques Kahn knew how to fuse the modern constructive ways with the traditional ones. He used new materials very wisely, but all his studies where based in past architectures. This is reflected in his studio in Rome of the Baths of Caracalla, building which for it constructive technique fascinated Kahn. It was based on barrel vaults 20 meters high, a very innovative technique for such a high altitude at that time.

Kahn was interested in applying the technological means available at the time, using modern materials, although sometimes he used old construction means and was inspired by historical methods. This adoption of the technology can be seen in the Salk Institute in the application of Vierendeel girders that allowed Kahn to solve large spans that would not be possible otherwise with other materials (Fig. 7). This technique allowed him to develop the functional program sought, with a big an open floor plan and a mezzanine with the service installations.

The reflection Kahn does on materials is critical in his work, where he comes to ask what they want to be. 7 This reflection can be seen very clearly in the Dhaka Parliament Palace, where after analyzing the materials properties, he finishes using marble in the joints every certain distance to contain concrete moisture problems.

He uses this same logic when choosing materials throughout his entire career, such as low maintenance wood and exposed concrete.

Fig. 5

Spatial Analysis The laboratories are developed near cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, allowing an easy connection between the ocean and the building. It is therefore surrounded by a natural environment, from which a hint of sublimity is reflected in the warp of concrete and travertine surface covering the plaza. This connection between the ocean and the building is emphasized in the towers of studies where each studio has a window facing the Ocean. This connection with nature is present since the second phase of the project, where a garden was considered instead of the current plaza. The nature immersed between the buildings with large trees was considered from the initial sketches. The final appearance of the square changed by the intervention of BarragĂĄn, who thought more appropriate a large stone plaza, eliminating interference with the outside and winning a “facade to heavenâ€?. On the other hand, we can not ignore the intense presence of the water that runs through the square as a tiny channel that falls on a large fountain in the meeting space, creating a pleasant environment both in appearance and sound. This water channel also gives a sense of humidity to such a solid and rough environment.

When we talk about Louis Kahn, we talk about an architectural expression, and above all, we speak of natural light. Natural light is an element present in all of his work. Kahn explicitly rejects the conformity of some architects of leaving the duty of lighting a space with electricity. Calibrating the different designs according to the weather and sun conditions changes our perception of space, creating a space that is different at all times of the day. In the Salk Institute, the structure is the light creator, expressed through materials and light sensations. The buildings are arranged creating a rhythm of light, no light, light, no light, and so on. This rhythm allows light to create a unique arrangement of shadows and light that change during the day, creating different perceptions of the space at all time. Kahn uses light as another material to create new sensations and spaces every minute. Kahn use to say, "Artificial light is just a moment, while natural light is infinite when offering spaces".8 Light has a categorical ability at the moment it touches a space.

"Even a room that should be black needs at least an aperture of light to know how dark it is".9 So light is needed for the correct perception of space and, furthermore, converts architecture into a four-dimensional space, so that time is a factor that affects how we feel spaces. For example, a white wall lit by a sunset is completely different from the same wall illuminated by the harsh midday light. This wall illuminated by the sunset would acquire a yellow tone, while when illuminated in the midday would be so white that would be dazzling.

Another important concept on Kahn’s architecture is silence. Kahn believed that silence was the opposite of light, and inspiration was a result of its blend. Silence is defined as the lack of sound. It can be known as a void, it creates emptiness.

Linking silence with architecture, it can be compared with a building’s structure.

Structure has no form without light. Without light, structure and silence are form in potential.

The building as a whole acts as a continuous filter. Walking from the parking flanked by two side volumes, one crosses a small creek plaza where trees act as a visual screen that obstacles the further view to the Pacific Ocean. Going up the staircase leads to the large plaza bordered by the studios, observing the infinite water channel going into the ocean, framing the beautiful view to the Pacific with the perspective created by the concrete of the side laboratories and studios, and the travertine of the floor of the plaza. The plaza, apart from being a huge expressive element, is the main link between the studios and laboratories. To access them we must approach the blocks through the plaza, penetrating beneath the concrete frames down the studios, finding ourselves in the patios between the studios and the laboratories, and with the stairs and bridges that sew the studios and the laboratories.

References If we talk about comparing the work of Kahn with other buildings constructed by the author, there is a direct link with the Richards Medical Research Laboratories (fig. 5), which Kahn himself says it was a start point in the design of the Salk Institute. This link is found primarily on the concept that Kahn tries to convey with the distribution of the scientific studies in a tower, emphasizing the verticality of the Salk Institute. Unlike the initial design, the built phase of the Salk Institute corresponds to a building module with a defined symmetry axis, ordering both the open space and the more private space with the laboratories buildings. As for design, rationalism is evidently present, from the spatial organization to the rationalism of materials - modern materials are used with wood and travertine, using a reduced range of materials, showing all of them directly, without any artifice.

If we focus on what we consider formal links, in this work of Kahn we can talk about the figure of the Greek agora within a city completely geared toward culture.

The agora was understood as a space where intellectuals shared their knowledge for social good. Creating a parallelism with the work of the Estonian architect, this

space of exchange of ideas is the square where Salk had in mind that Picasso could be invited, enjoying the place and even interact with the scientists gathered there.

Finally, by introducing the work of Kahn in the artistic context of the moment and reflecting the prevailing spirit of the times, a great similarity between the garden of the house of Luis Barragรกn (fig. 6) and the plaza created by Kahn after the visit of Mexican architect to La Jolla is clearly noticed. Both spaces are seeking the idea of creating a classic symmetry axis but in a modern space. In both the garden designed by Barragรกn and the plaza by Kahn, water and an artificial cascade is what creates this new concept of classical symmetry axis.

Fig. 6

Fig. 7

Monumentality Monumentality in architecture has little to do with the size or even the purpose of the building. It is the ability to take us beyond our limits. Although architecture may not prevail in time, it is able to create sensations and emotions that influence deeply in people. The relation with the eternal is the most important concept and element of monumentality.

In the Salk Institute, Kahn materializes monumentality in the central courtyard.

Framing the horizon, ocean and sky with the surrounding laboratory buildings, it creates a calm and meditative space, producing different sensations to every person that stands in the courtyard. Being there creates an overwhelming feeling, emphasizing the insignificance of humans against the vastness of the surrounding ocean and sky. This effect has implicit on it a feeling of meditation and inspiration, which was what Jonas Salk was trying to achieve when he told Kahn to create a place worth a visit of Picasso. This monumental place is inspirational to every person that stands there. Kahn is able to achieve this monumentality with the excellent use and combination of light, silence, materials and form of the building.10 Timeless architecture

With a philosophy that had transcended in time, Kahn had a conception of the architecture that can be only understood if it is read and analyzed with his own examples. His philosophy is deep and systematic, but also flexible at the time to be interpreted. The use of materiality as a concept and light as an element to create spaces is a constant argument that has been utilized until the present to explain his architecture.

Louis I. Kahn combined new techniques and forms with classical elements to achieve his monumental style, including forms and ideas of the past, which was totally rejected by modern architecture. Kahn was able to prove in the Salk Institute for Biological studies that the International Style and European Modernism were not the only roads to fulfill the needs of a contemporary building. He demonstrated that it is possible to create a building that prevails in history, evoking classical concepts such as monumentality but using new materials and constructive techniques. This new works and concepts developed by Kahn and some of his contemporaries would allow architects to move beyond the strict rules of Modernism, leaving the doors opened to Postmodernism.

Notes 1

"Louis Kahn." Design Museum. Accessed November 14, 2014. http://designmuseum.org/designers/louis-kahn.

2 STEELE, James. Salk Institute: Louis I. Kahn. London: Phaidon Press, 1993.

3 BROWNLEE, David and DE LONG, David, 1991. Kahn: In the Realm of Architecture. New York: Rizzoli.

4 STEELE, James. Salk Institute: Louis I. Kahn. London: Phaidon Press, 1993.

5 BROWNLEE, David and DE LONG, David, 1991. Kahn: In the Realm of Architecture. New York: Rizzoli.

6 AMADO LORENZO, Antonio. "KAHN Y BARRAGÁN. Convergencias En La Plaza Del Instituto Salk." Expresion Grafica Arquitectonica.

7 Louis I. Kahn: Talks to a Brick. University of Pennsylvania.

8 LATOUR, Alessandra. Louis I. Kahn: Writings, Lectures, Interviews. Page: 106.

9 LATOUR, Alessandra. Louis I. Kahn: Writings, Lectures, Interviews. Page: 252 10 KAHN, Louis I., and TWOMBLY, Robert C. Louis Kahn: Essential Texts. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003. Pages: 21-32

Bibliography Amado Lorenzo, Antonio. "KAHN Y BARRAGÁN. CONVERGENCIAS EN LA PLAZA DEL INSTITUTO SALK." Expresion Grafica Arquitectonica.

Arquitectura Viva “LOUIS I. KAHN.” Madrid: Arquitectura Viva, 2001.

Brownlee, David and De Long, David. “KAHN: IN THE REALM OF ARCHITECTURE.” New York: Rizzoli. 1991 Kahn, Louis I., and Twombly, Robert C. “LOUIS KAHN: ESSENTIAL TEXTS.” New York: W.W. Norton, 2003.

Latour, Alessandra. “LOUIS I. KAHN: WRITINGS, LECTURES, INTERVIEWS.” New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc, 1991.

Lobell, John, and Kahn, Louis I. “BETWEEN SILENCE AND LIGHT: SPIRIT IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF LOUIS I. KAHN.” Boulder: Shambhala, 1979.

Encyclopedia Britannica.

"LOUIS I. KAHN (AMERICAN ARCHITECT)." http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/309690/Louis-I-Kahn.

"LOUIS I. KAHN" Design Museum. http://designmuseum.org/designers/louis-kahn.

Steele, James. “SALK INSTITUTE: LOUIS I. KAHN.” London: Phaidon Press, 1993.

Multimedia LOUIS I. KAHN: Talks to a Brick. University of Pennsylvania. 1971. (YouTube).

Images Fig. 1 - Salk Institute, Louis I. Kahn. Photograph: Alfred Essa.

Fig. 2 - Original sketch 540.1.1. Alexander Tzonis. THE LOUIS I. KAHN ARCHIVE. Page 35.

Fig. 3 - Louis I. Kahn (1962). Preliminary sketch of the plaza.

Fig. 4 - Luis Barragán (1966). Proposal for the plaza at the Salk Institute.

Fig. 5 - Structural System. Vierendeel girders. 18 AÑOS CON EL ARQUITECTO LOUIS I. KAHN. Page 129.

Fig. 6 - Richards Medical Research Laboratory, Louis Kahn. Photograph: Richard Anderson.

Fig, 7 - Arquitectura Viva: Louis I. Kahn. Page 44.