The San Diego Museum of Art will showcase the works of Louis Kahn this fall as it holds a series of exhibitions and events revolving around the renowned architect’s iconic works, including the famed Salk Institute in nearby La Jolla, California.
Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture, opening November 5th, looks to bring 200 objects related to Kahn’s life and building projects into focus, including the first public showing of the Philadelphia architect’s watercolor, pastel, and charcoal sketches created over the course his extensive travels. The exhibition aims to be all-encompassing, discussing the architect’s biography alongside his most famous works. It will also point an eye toward the rigor of his architectural practice, with the artistic prowess embodied by the sketches being supplemented by personal documents, drawings, study models, and archival images of his iconic architectural works.
Kahn’s oeuvre ranges from American-bound projects like Salk in California and the Library at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire to his work in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where Kahn designed the then newly-independent nation’s National Assembly building in 1982. In a press release for the exhibition, Roxana Velásquez, the Maruja Baldwin executive director of The San Diego Museum of Art, praised the architect’s local work, referring to the Salk Institute as “a San Diego landmark regarded as one of the most inspirational works of architecture in the world.”
Another exhibition, Shape, Shadow, and Space: Photographs of the Salk Institute, will showcase architectural photography by design students of the Woodbury University School of Architecture and run alongside The Power of Architecture. The museum also aims to hold a symposium featuring scholars of the architect’s life and works on the opening day of the exhibition; the museum will also screen the film My Architect, A Son’s Journey, in conjunction with the panel. The film is to be presented by its director, Nathaniel Kahn, son of Louis Kahn.
The exhibition will run through January 31, 2017, capping off a banner season for San Diego–area architecture enthusiasts that will also see a constellation of local museums showcasing the work local architectural hero Irving J. Gill concurrently.
