The Master and the Student

Today's lecture on Louis Kahn began with a quick tour on the basic tenets of philosophy through Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and Locke in regard to how Kahn constructed his architectural dogma. I found the trifecta of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle to be a particularly interesting starting point because Kahn, himself, was both a master and a student of the emerging modernist movement.

Plato provided a fascinating and applicable fable to the master and student in the Allegory of the Cave (“The Republic”). In this, Plato presents a view of reality that is only false because the perspective of the viewer is askew. There is a Higher Truth unseen by the inhabitants of the cave. They do not have the appropriate vantage point. Their knowledge is based on smoke and mirrors.

"...your faith was strong but you needed proof."

Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah.

The Salk Institute is the ultimate testament to the master/student and client/architect relationship. There, Louis Kahn and Jonas Salk repeatedly exchanged places in the role of master and student. I had the opportunity to visit the Salk Institute with the La Tech Architecture Department in 2009. This trip came at a time when I was losing faith in my decision to return to school and my ability to adapt to a field where communication had changed drastically in my absence. In my foundation courses, I was notorious for re-using two architects as precedents- Kahn and Aalto. In my defense, they were the form-givers, the purists and their work has greatly stood the test of time. To my detriment, I was the one not evolving. Anyway, I have always contended that I never wanted to see an Aalto or Kahn in person. I do not like anti-climaxes. When the trip was announced, however, I desperately wanted to go.

The Salk Institute is nestled in small, flat-tree hills outside San Diego. The landscape is both beautiful and harsh. Our first glimpse of the actual structures was from the hills above the complex. Your expectations build as you approach and the actual site itself prolongs the anticipation with an extended threshold. You park, you walk up a huge hill, you see the newer structures (and appreciate, but dismiss….not what you are there for), you hit the bathroom… And there, I stopped and waited a second. I thought back to that second architectural history class (I think of you often, Mr. Dulaney….). I remembered my enthusiasm, my love…I remembered the beginning of the journey.

In some crazy, inexplicable turn-of-events, everyone (including the 20+ students in our group) had cleared the plaza. That iconic view of the Salk overlooking the Pacific was completely flawless and pristine. At the end of the procession, Mr. Brooks asked me what I thought. I told him it was worth everything. Absolutely everything. And, it was.

In a windowless room, I was introduced to the beginning of my journey in architecture. In the timeless concrete plaza, I knew I had touched faith and started the end of my journey vis-à-vis Louis Kahn. Whatever regrets I have had or will have in the future, I know I was a student of a great master that day and allowed a small glimpse into a higher knowledge. Many other days, I had only seen flames on the wall.

“Sometimes the things we strive for so hard in life we’ll never see happen in this life.”

-Nathaniel Kahn

Louis Kahn never saw some of his work to completion. The National Assembly Building in Bangladesh was completed several years after his death. In the clip below from the documentary “My Architect,” Nathaniel Kahn meets the people who live and work in the shadows of his father's building. While he was notorious for not always agreeing with the client’s perspective, Louis Kahn extended the perspective of the inhabitants of his architecture. His death was untimely and sad, but his quiet, anonymous death in a bathroom at Penn Station was perhaps a testament to a life lived with a balance between great fervor and great contradiction. He was both a master and a student and he continually repositioned himself within the journey. Kahn did not look to the endpoint to find his truths. He understood the importance, figuratively and literally, of utilizing the space he inhabited.

(The illustration of Plato's Cave courtesy of U of M: Duluth's Anthropology Dept.; the video clip is from TED; photos of the Salk Institute are mine)