Louis Kahn Quotes

United States, Architect
March 5, 1901 – March, 17, 1974.

Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky) (March 5 [O.S. February 20] 1901 – March 17, 1974) was an American architect, based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. While continuing his private practice, he served as a design critic and professor of architecture at Yale School of Architecture from 1947 to 1957. From 1957 until his death, he was a professor of architecture at the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.

Consider the momentous event in architecture when the wall parted and the column became.

Louis Kahn
- Wall
- Architecture
The first thing that an architect must do is to sense that every building you build is a world of its own, and that this world of its own serves an institution.

Louis Kahn
- World

A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable.

Louis Kahn
- Great
If people want to see Beaux-Arts, it's fine with me. I'm interested in good architecture as anybody else.

Louis Kahn
- People
- Good
- Architecture
Every time a student walks past a really urgent, expressive piece of architecture that belongs to his college, it can help reassure him that he does have that mind, does have that soul.

Louis Kahn
- Time
- Mind
- Help
How precious a book is in light of the offering, in the light of the one who has the privilege of this offering. The library tells you of this offering.

Louis Kahn
- Book
- Light
- Library
What does a house want to be?

Louis Kahn
- House
Architecture is the thoughtful making of space.

Louis Kahn

I try to create homes, not houses.

Louis Kahn
You say to a brick, 'What do you want, brick?' And brick says to you, 'I like an arch.' And you say to brick, 'Look, I want one, too, but arches are expensive and I can use a concrete lintel.' And then you say: 'What do you think of that, brick?' Brick says: 'I like an arch.'

Louis Kahn
Architecture is the reaching out for the truth.

Louis Kahn
- Truth
- Architecture
Every building must have... its own soul.

Louis Kahn
- Soul
Architecture struck me between the eye and the eyeball.

Louis Kahn
- Architecture
In a small room one does not say what one would in a large room.

Louis Kahn
- Small

A room is not a room without natural light.

Louis Kahn
- Light
The street is a room by agreement.

Louis Kahn
Design is not making beauty, beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration, love.

Louis Kahn
- Design