Scribd
Upload
21 views1 page

After The International Style: The Late Twentieth Century 419 419

The document provides information about architects Louis Kahn and Cesar Pelli. It discusses some of Kahn's major works from the 1950s-1970s including a church in Rochester, New York and libraries at Yale University and Phillips Exeter Academy. It also discusses two of Pelli's major works, the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center in New York and the NTT building in Tokyo.

Uploaded by

zingiberofficinale22
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
21 views1 page

After The International Style: The Late Twentieth Century 419 419

The document provides information about architects Louis Kahn and Cesar Pelli. It discusses some of Kahn's major works from the 1950s-1970s including a church in Rochester, New York and libraries at Yale University and Phillips Exeter Academy. It also discusses two of Pelli's major works, the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center in New York and the NTT building in Tokyo.

Uploaded by

zingiberofficinale22
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

After the International Style: The Late Twentieth Century 419

Kahn was deeply concerned with the His first major building was an art gallery for
expression of materials and with the ways in Yale (1951–3, renovated and expanded 2012),
which light reveals form and determines the with ceilings formed by triangular coffers
nature of interior spaces. The First Unitarian of concrete structural slabs, and four levels
church of Rochester, New York (21.4; 1959– connected by an elevator and stairs in a cylin-
69), is a cluster of multipurpose rooms drical enclosure.
surrounding a central sanctuary, with light Kahn’s library for Phillips Exeter Academy
entering from windows high up on roof projec- in Exeter, New Hampshire (1965–72), has
tions. The windows cannot be seen from most stacks arranged on balcony floors that surround
positions within the church—the light seems a central atrium viewed through huge circular
to enter from invisible sources. With its simple, openings. Light comes from skylights above the
21.5 César Pelli, Winter gray masonry walls the space is austere, but is atrium. The Yale Center for British Art in New
Garden, World Financial
enlivened by brightly colored tapestry hang- Haven, Connecticut (1969–74), provides gallery
Center, Battery Park City,
New York, 1980–8; ings by Jack Lenor Larsen. The effects of light space on levels surrounding two skylit courts.
rebuilt 2001. in relation to the limited color create a power- The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas
With its obvious echoes of fully moving effect. (1966–72), is a single-story building, a kind
London’s Crystal Palace of
1851, this structure offers a
As his reputation grew, Kahn’s practice of pavilion of parallel concrete vaulted elements
huge space that can be used became international. The Indian Institute of where light is led in from hidden sources at
for concerts, exhibitions, and Management in Ahmedabad, India (1962–74), the top of each vault. Artificial light comes
other special events. When
not so used, it forms an atrium
and the new Capitol of Bangladesh in Dhaka from the same locations. As a teacher, Kahn
circulation space, from which (1962–83) are among his most impressive tended to speak in mystical phrases about form,
there is access to surrounding works. In each, masonry forms are penetrated light, and materials, a style that fascinated
shops. Color comes from floor
patterns, painted columns, and
by openings that create interiors in which a his students and, ultimately, the design
the green of trees. constant play of light modulates the space. professions that came to regard him as a leader
and a prophet.

Pelli

César Pelli, born in Argentina, is a more


worldly figure—a maker of gigantic
projects with interiors that seem to be a by-
product of massive building structures. In
1972 he designed the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo,
a rectilinear mass clad in mirror glass and alu-
minum. In 1984, his expansion of the Museum
of Modern Art in New York added an adjacent
apartment tower and extended the original
museum building with a glass-enclosed atrium-
like space to house escalators connecting the
exhibit floors. At the World Financial Center at
Battery Park City in New York, Pelli designed a
group of tower buildings with complementary
geometric rooflines. The glass-roofed interior
of the Winter Garden (21.5; 1980–8) suggests
London’s Crystal Palace of 1851 (see p. 247).
It was damaged, but rebuilt, after the World
Trade Center destruction of September 2001.
The 1995 NTT building in Tokyo by Pelli is
a thirty-story tower, basically triangular but
with a curved hypotenuse, giving typical office
floors light and a view out over the adjacent
plaza and small service building. The public
entrance lobby at plaza level is marble-floored
with a ceiling of perforated aluminum plate.

c21.indd 419 10/30/2013 5:04:53 PM

You might also like