Daniella on Design - Visiting the Kimbell Art Museum

Theme Music "Lindiggity" by DJ Come of Age http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/djcomeofage5 Most design critics agree that Louis Kahn was the most talented and influential American architect of the mid-century years. He advanced modernism beyond the fading International Style into immense, poetic expression, and became an inspiration for generations of architects to come. Kahn designed only a few of buildings, mainly for art, educational, and religious institutions, all of which are destinations. Some of his works include the Yale Art Gallery (1953), a commission he received while working at the Yale School of Architecture; the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California (1965), depicted in this iconic photo by Ezra Stoller; the Phillips Academy Library in Exeter, New Hampshire (1972); the Unitarian Church in Rochester New York (1969); and of course, the National Assembly Building of Bangladesh. Like other modernists, Kahn was captured by classical architecture. For him, it was the oldest monuments, such as the Parthenon of Delphi, the Egyptian pyramids, and Hadrian's Villa in Rome, rather than neoclassical works, that inspired him. The wonders of the ancients, with their bold geometrical volumes and structural masonry, are echoed in all of his buildings, including the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, TX, which is hailed as the best art museum of the postwar era. Kahn believed that creating monumental architecture was the only way to become timeless. Last week, I began my own pilgrimage to Texas, to visit what I consider the most beautiful museum in the world. Knowing that it would host masterpieces, Kahn created a space engineered for the thrilling use of natural light. He infused advanced technology with the spirit and scale of ancient Roman villas, of the type he had seen in Pompeii. The vaulted ceilings and walls carve the sky of Texas, creating a magical ambience where art and architecture come together without overshadowing one another. Kahn was a genius. His legacy lives in the Kimbell Art Museum as a love affair between bold elements, inviting visitors to engage with beauty in an ongoing conversation, a conversation that will enter a new phase in November 2013. Renzo Piano, who once apprenticed in Kahn's office, designed a pavilion based on similar principals of light, this time achieved by glass, concrete, and wood. I plan visit to Kimbell again this fall, when the pavilion is opened to the public.