H EADLINES
Famed Architect’s Work to Be Reproduced
L OCA L
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
A RECENTLY COMPLETED
Kickstarter campaign will
fund the publication of a new
edition of the “Th e Notebooks
and Drawings of Louis I.

Kahn,” a collection of the
famed Philadelphia architect’s
sketches. Originally published in
1962, with a second edition
printed in 1973, the collection
has been out of print ever since.

Now, aft er raising more than
$130,000 between Feb. 18 and
April 2, Designers & Books, an
independent publisher based in
Brooklyn, will publish an exact
facsimile of the original, along-
side new material collected in a
Reader’s Guide.

Th e Reader’s Guide will
include a new essay from
TED Conferences founder
Richard Saul Wurman, Kahn’s
one-time student, mentee and
the original creator of the
book; Kahn’s three children,
including Nathaniel Kahn, who
directed an Academy Award-
nominated documentary about
his father; Larry Korman,
owner of the Kahn Korman
House in Fort Washington;
Jonathan Salk, son of Kahn’s
friend Jonas Salk; the famed
architect Moshe Safdie; and
many more.

“When I came across it and
actually had the chance to see
it, I immediately knew that it
was a book that I wanted us
to publish,” said Steve Kroeter,
editor in chief and founder of
Designers & Books.

Aft er Kroeter saw the book’s
original version for the fi rst time
a few years ago, he reached out
to Wurman with the idea to do
a reprint. Wurman agreed on
the condition that the reprint
be accompanied by a detailed
Reader’s Guide. Arrangements
were made, the funds were
raised and the two books are
now available for preorder at
louisikahn.com/shop. Kahn, born Itze-Leib
Schmuilowsky in 1901 on an
island off the coast of Estonia,
came to Philadelphia when he
was 4. He displayed a knack for
drawing from a young age — he
was off ered a full scholarship to
the Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts, according to the
Kimbell Art Museum — but
instead pursued architecture
studying at the University of
Pennsylvania aft er graduating
from Central High School.

Over the course of a long
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H EADLINES
a request that Kahn granted.

Working with experimental
printer Eugene Feldman,
Wurman collected Kahn’s
travel sketches from Greece,
Egypt, Italy and France,
alongside early drawings
of his completed projects,
like the Richards Medical
Research Laboratories at
Penn. Th ere are also renderings
of Kahn’s ideas for Center
City, never realized. Wurman
interspersed the drawings
with text — adaptations
Louis Kahn’s 1951 crayon
drawing of Delphi, included in
“The Notebooks and Drawings
of Louis I. Kahn”
Photos courtesy of Designers & Books
career, Kahn, who was based
in Philadelphia for much of
his life, distinguished himself
among architects as a singular
thinker and builder, sought
aft er across the world, according
to Wurman. He designed
everything from Philadelphia
Housing Authority projects
to the National Assembly
Building in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

He designed
museums, homes, churches, schools and
synagogues; Kahn built JCCs,
research centers, factories and
libraries. He
frequently took
Philadelphia as his subject,
even if his grander ideas for
a redesigned, carless Center
City (or Congregation Mikveh
Israel) never came to fruition.

He died in 1974, leaving
behind a trove of drawings,
writings, speeches and other
papers collected today in the
Louis I. Kahn Collection at the
Architectural Archives of the
University of Pennsylvania.

Wurman, a Philadelphia
native who studied architecture
at Penn, learned and worked
under Kahn for years, and
became a devotee of his work.

When he was just 25, Wurman
asked Kahn if he might allow
Wurman to collect some of his
sketches and texts into a book,
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM of Kahn’s speeches that he’d
recorded and transcribed
himself. Th e book’s 2021 edition
will be a reproduction of the
1973 second edition, produced
by MIT Press, which added a
letter from Kahn to Wurman
and Feldman refl ecting on the
original. “Lou Kahn was and is my
mentor,” Wurman said.

Since Kahn’s
death, Wurman has enjoyed success
and multiple honors — a
Guggenheim Fellowship,
grants from the National
Endowment for the Arts — and
founded the TED conference in
1984. But Kahn’s work speaks
to him through the decades,
communicating ideas and a
passion for craft .

“It changes your life, when
you listen, and are one of those
people who is interested in
absorbing what he had to say,
actually listening to what he
had to say,” he said. ●
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...to be continued
JEWISH EXPONENT
APRIL 8, 2021
11