Light In Design by nrubino22

LOUIS KAHN LE CORBUSIER

LIGHT IN DESIGN EDITED BY NICHOLAS RUBINO

TABLE OF CONTENTS

KAHN INSTITUTE

CHAPEL OF NOTRE DAME DU HAUT

KIMBELL ART MUSEUM

MAISON LA ROCHE

WORKS CITED

SALK INSTITUTE LOUIS KAHN

La Jolla, Claifornia, USA 1956

The sun was not aware of its wonder until it struck the side of a building. -Louis Kahn

Rythmic light in sequential openings of portico

For American architect, Louis Kahn, light is a metaphysical presence - a primary substance, which in turn gives presence to physical form. All materials, all things, from mountain to air, are experienced by virtue of their light modulation. Central also to Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s understanding of light is its close relation to silence. Kahn employed archaic geometry and huge empty walls to simplify buildings to an irreducible essence. As visual noise disappears, human consciousness turns back upon itself - there to sense its own being, and tenuous existence in the world.

Site Plan

Henry Plummer (176), Masters of Light, 2003

Traverse section

CHAPEL NOTRE DAME DU HAUT

LE CORBUSIER

Le Corbusier gave complete expression to his famous dictum that â&#x20AC;&#x153;architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of forms in light.â&#x20AC;? Walls are no longer flat, but sculpted from convex and concave surfaces, whose plastic curves bulge in response to spaces within.

The continuous play of tonalities, sliding unbroken from one plane into another, impels observers to keep moving around the building, and to follow a slow evolution of light and shadow experienced through space and time. This project produces a totality of light in motion. Henry Plummer (236), Masters of Light, 2003

Axonometric

Plan

Site plan

South elevation

East elevation

Day light factor percentage

Diagram of solar penetration

Section

Details of light scoops

Ronchamp, France 1955

View up into large side chapel

Embrasures with glancing light

Cluster of embrasures

KIMBELL ART MUSEUM LOUIS KAHN

We were born of light. The seasons are felt through light. We only know the world as it is evoked by light, and from this comes the thought that material is spent light. To me natural light is the only light, because it has mood - it provides a ground of common agreement for man - it puts us in touch with the eternal. Natural light is the only light that makes architecture architecture. -Louis Kahn

Entrance

Gallery

Wall openings at end of gallery vault

Fort Worth, Texas, USA 1972

Portico at sunset

In the skylight rooms that make up the Kimbell Art Museum, the roof remains low and intimate to house the collectionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s modest-sized paintings. Here Kahn invented a skylight system unsurpassed in the history of architecture, intended to not only illuminate space but also give to the ceiling a silver radiance. The basic unit of design is a barrel-vaulted space - a gallery one hundred feet long, and opened to sun by a slit along its apex. Though each vault has its own place and light, it combines in parallel with others to form a wider totality. With almost no exterior windows, most illumination enters vertically through the vaulting

Henry Plummer (188), Masters of Light, 2003

Upper Level Plan

Initial sectional lighting studies of vaulting and reflectors

Lower Level Plan

Sectional lighting studies

Lustrous treatment of poured concrete vault

Section of vault

Diagonal light in portico

MAISON LA ROCHE LE CORBUSIER

Radiant white walls dominating the early architecture of Le Corbusier gave a convincing lyrical form to modernism’s utopian vision of light and air. The rational walls exude a calm undifferentiated whiteness, and function primarily as projection screens for changing colors of natural light and shadows cast by sun. Dreaming of the distant horizon, the ethereal skin was lifted up into the air, to optically tremble with each passing hour and drifting shadow of cloud. Henry Plummer (232), Masters of Light, 2003 “Our elements are vertical walls... The walls in full brilliant light, or in half shade or in full shade, giving an effect of gaiety, serenity or sadness. Your symphony is ready made.” - Le Corbusier

Paris, France 1923

Upper level plan

Maison la Roche, sketch

Main hall viewed from staircase

Sketches of light in traditional and ribbon windows

Main Hall

Works Cited Henry Plummer. Masters of Light First Volume: Twentieth-Century Pioneers. Tokyo, Japan: a+u Publishing Co, 2003.

N. Yoshida

P. Allison

T. Ando

Pg. 180

Pg. 182

Pg. 242

Pg. 245

Pg. 197

N. Yoshida

P. Allison

T. Ando

Pg. 182

Pg. 181

Pg. 241

Pg. 188

Pg. 194

N. Yoshida

P. Allison

T. Ando

Pg. 178

Pg. 181

Pg.243

Pg. 196

N. Yoshida

P. Allison

Pg. 179

Pg. 239

Pg. 244

P. Allison

T. Ando

237

Pg. 195

Pg. 192

P. Allison Pg. 236-38

P. Allison

T. Ando

E. VIray

E. Viray

Pg. 193

Pg. 233

Pg. 232

Kaimakliotis, Dimitris. The poetics of contemplative light in the Church of Notre-Dame-du-Haut designed by Le Corbusier. Nottingham, England: Louvain-la-Neuve, 2011.

Pg. 240 D. Kaimakliotis Pg. 5

Hiepler, Brunier, Cemal Emden. Le Corbusier Maison La Roche-Jeanneret.Paris, France: Divisare, 2016.

H. Brunier

(8).

(16).

(4).

H. Brunier

(9).

(14).

(2).

C. Emden (1).

Lobell, John. Between Silence and Light, Spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Kahn. Boston, Massachusetts: Shambhala Publications Inc, 1979.

J. Lobell Pg. 81