THE ARCHITECTURAL HIEROGLYPHICS OF LOUIS I. KAHN, ARCHITECTURE AS LOGOS

The dissertation is concerned with setting the theory and work of the late American master architect, Louis I. Kahn, within a romantic tradition of Neoplatonism. To support my thesis, I have used the primary materials of the Louis I. Kahn Collection at the University of Pennsylvania and Kahn\u27s personal library at the home of his widow, Mrs. Esther I. Kahn, as well as interviewing family, friends, clients, and colleagues of Louis Kahn.^ Kahn\u27s many theoretical statements affirm his conviction that in architecture spiritual staisfactions transcend the rational expression of utilitarian and structural excellence. He viewed his art as a kind of universal human language speaking to the soul through timeless symbolic analogies. He summarized his theoretical stance in the following aphorisms: (1) Art is the language of God. (2) The only language of man is art. In order to achieve such an ambitious theoretical program, Kahn consciously inscribed within his work pictographic-like images which refer to prototypical forms of communication, both divine and mortal. By founding his art upon such redimentary expressions, he hoped to address human nature upon a collective basis. Kahn\u27s aesthetic interest in primordial forms of communication, revealed by his library, apparently springs from a contact early in life with German romantic thought through his mother, Bertha Mendelssohn Kahn. This literary dogma formulated in the late 18th and early 19th centuries synthesized several mystical traditions largely derived from European Renaissance examples, i.e., Neoplatonism and kabbalah. The romantics viewed the creative genius as the prophetic mouthpiece of Deity. The dissertation interprets Kahn\u27s oeuvre as a conscious attempt to realize such an elevated expression.^ The thesis presents Kahn\u27s exploitation of the Egyptian hieroglyphic in his work, a script traditionally viewed by Neoplatonists as an archetypal, sacred language. These architectural hieroglyphics are taken as evidence of his applied aesthetic theory and the Neoplatonic-like cast of his Weltenschauung. Based upon his expressed interest in the Egyptian hieroglyphic, the dissertation further interprets his thought and work in terms of the romantic understanding of the hieroglyph , a conception which encompasses, for example, kabbalah, physiognomy, and psychology.