KIMBELL ART MUSEUM
LOUIS I. KAHN
1966-1972
Site plans of Kimbell Art Museum
In Fort Worth, Texas, the Kimbell Art Museum rises 12m from the gentle slope of the Texas plains. Kay Kimbell and his wife Velma Fuller established the Kimbell Art Foundation in 1935 and, at the time of his death in 1964, Kay had amassed on of the greatest collections of old masters in the United States. It was decided that his collection would be displayed in a museum of equal quality to these magnificent works of art.
The director of the Kimbell Art Foundation, Richard Brown, specified that “natural light should play a vital part” in the design of the museum, so as to effectively display the artwork in their complete glory. Brown interviewed several many distinguished architects; Marcel Breuer, Mies van der Rohe, Pier Luigi Nervi, Gordon Bunshaft, Edward Larrabee Barnes; and landed on Louis I. Kahn in 1966, owing to Kahn’s competency in light manipulation. (1–4)
Louis I. Kahn
Louis Isadore Kahn was born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky on the island of Osel, off the coast of the Russian Empire (modern day Estonia), in February 1901. When he was four his family emigrated to Philadelphia and gained citizenship in 1915. Upon their naturalization, his family changed their names, taking the surname Kahn, which had been already taken by another naturalized relative.
Kahn showed a great creative and artistic talent through his younger years. In Russia, he would sketch with burnt twigs and matches, as his parents did not have the money to buy drawing equipment. In his later years, Kahn would often use charcoal and burnt matches in his sketches, as he favoured the technique of charcoal drawing. Through his proficiency with art, he was awarded a scholarship to the Pennsylvania Academy of Art. It was here, in his final year of study, that a mandatory class in architectural history inspired him to pursue a career in architecture.
He studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania of the tutelage of renowned French-born architect, Paul Philippe Cret. Cret specified in the Beaux-Arts style and instilled and inspired in his students the importance of form and proportion. Kahn was enthralled by Cret and eventually worked with him on the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. It was Cret who expressed to Kahn the importance of lighting and light sources in museum architecture.
Kahn established his own firm at the age of 36, during the Great Depression. The early years of his career were slow, he took jobs mostly in low-cost public housing, as these were the only jobs available at the time for an unknown architect. These works were heavily inspired by social housing projects in Germany and the Netherlands, and the works of Le Corbusier. Kahn often designed in this international style.
In the 1950’s however, Kahn travelled through the Italy, Greece and Egypt, as an American Academy fellow in Rome. Here, Kahn gained an insight into the effects of lighting, space and structure in the Mediterranean constructions.
“Greek architecture taught me that the column is where the light is not, and the space between is where the light is. It is a matter of no-light, light, no-light, light. A column and a column brings light between them. To make a column which grows out of the wall and which makes its own rhythm of no-light, light, no-light, light: that is the marvel of the artist.”
- Louis I. Kahn (5)
It was these ideas and insights from which blossomed the design of his first major commission, the Yale University Art Gallery, in 1951. Kahn’s work focused on the importance of light and shadow, and the interplay between the two. Kahn became known as the master of light for his proficiency in intelligent lighting design.
Kahn saw light as the most natural thing. To Kahn, light is the maker of the material, without light one could not experience the material. The material’s purpose is to cast shadow. Kahn understood the importance of the relationship between light and shadow. On this relationship, Kahn says; “Even a space intended to be dark should have just enough light from some mysterious opening to tell us how dark it really is.” (4–6)
Kahn began designing the Kimbell Art Museum in 1966, injecting it with his knowledge of light and shadow. Kahn believed that the essence of a structure should start with the room and flow from there (Form Follows Function). The museums plan evolved from Kahn’s notion of a “family of rooms”. Kahn arrived at the idea to use vaulted ceilings, that that stretched over 100ft long galleries and reading spaces, which would allow natural light to illuminate the space from above.
Kimbell Art Museum interior (2)
From the western view, the façade is extruded on the left and right extremities, reaching outwards in two columnated porticos. Centrally sits a recessed glaze entrance facility. In plan, the building is perforated to allow for greater light intake, air flow and to play with the relationship between the internal spaces. The galleries are mostly located in the upper floor to allow for the most natural lighting opportunities available.
Kimbell Art Museum exterior (2)
The cycloid vaults span the length of the museum and give the building its distinguishable shape. The arches are reminiscent of Roman and Egyptian architecture of antiquity, their barrels resting on four concrete pillars at the four corners. The tones of the concrete are reflected in the Italian travertine infill that makes up the walls of the museum space, these bright tones are illuminated further internally by the celestial silver light which showers in from above.
At the apex of the arches are narrow plexiglass skylights. Light pierces into the building and is diffused throughout by a network of pierced aluminium wing-shaped reflectors. This leaves a spectral dancing of light across the vaulted roof’s surface, which further diffuses over the area of the museum to artfully light the works on display in an ever-changing illumination. (1–4,7)
“The museum has as many moods as there are moments in time, and never… will there be a single day like the other.”
- Louis I. Kahn (3)
Kahn’s use of materials intertwines with his knowledge of lighting and the manipulation of natural light and weaves a fabric of perfection and expertise in terms of light design. The textured travertine walls and the white oak accents throughout the museum spread the light over the galleries. The lack of ornamentation in the building is effortlessly modern and aids in the highlighting of the artwork. Light pours in from the ceiling like a gentle rainfall and floods divinely throughout the space. The travertine walls, textured with millions of small perforations and bubbles, soak up the light and seem to glow with a light effervescence, especially at the vertex with the roof vaults.
1. Fracalossi I. AD Classics: Kimbell Art Museum / Louis Kahn | ArchDaily [Internet]. ArchDaily. 2011 [cited 2020 Oct 27]. Available from: https://www.archdaily.com/123761/ad-classics-kimbell-art-museum-louis-kahn?ad_medium=office_landing&ad_name=article
2. Kimbell Art Museum. Louis I. Kahn Building | Kimbell Art Museum [Internet]. Kimbell Art Museum. 2020 [cited 2020 Oct 27]. Available from: https://www.kimbellart.org/art-architecture/architecture/kahn-building
3. Kimbell Art Museum. Kahn Building in Detail | Kimbell Art Museum [Internet]. Kimbell Art Museum. 2020 [cited 2020 Oct 27]. Available from: https://www.kimbellart.org/content/kahn-building-detail
4. Binkowski K. Light and wood: An intimate and human space within the art libraries of Louis I. Kahn. Art Libr J. 2018;
5. Lowe A. Louis Kahn - An Architect of Light - The Power of Light and Shadow - Interior Designer Antonia Lowe [Internet]. Antonia Lowe Interiors. 2016 [cited 2020 Oct 27]. Available from: https://antonialoweinteriors.com/louis-kahn-an-architect-of-light-the-power-of-light-and-shadow
6. Kimbell Art Museum. Louis I. Kahn Biography | Kimbell Art Museum [Internet]. Kimbell Art Museum. 2020 [cited 2020 Oct 27]. Available from: https://www.kimbellart.org/content/louis-i-kahn-biography
7. Jordy WH. Review Reviewed Work(s): Louis I. Kahn Complete Works 1935-74 by Heinz Ronner, etc. [Internet]. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 1980 [cited 2020 Oct 27]. Available from: https://www-jstor-org.ucd.idm.oclc.org/stable/pdf/989515.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Af60c258803582c67645e845ed2e3d0a8
