You Say to Brick - The Life of Louis Kahn by Wendy Lesser: book review

You Say to Brick – The Life of Louis Kahn (2017) is the biography of American architect, Louis Kahn (1901-1974). Although his output was few, he was regarded as one of the greatest architects of the 20th century.

His ‘masterpieces’ were all built during the last 15 years of his life. These included: Salk Institute for Biological Studies (1959-1965), Indian Institute of Management (1961), National Assembly Building of Bangladesh (1962-1974), Phillips Exter Library (1965-1972), and the Kimbell Art Museum (1967-1972). His works are described as both timeless and of his time.

Born Leiser-Itze Schmulowsky (there are several spellings of his name) into a Jewish family in Estonia, the family moved to America in 1906. His father wanted him to be a painter and his mother wanted him to be a musician. Louis always knew he would be an architect.

The title of the biography comes from Kahn’s explanation of how he designs buildings: ‘If you say to brick, ‘Arches are expensive, and I can use a concrete lintel over an opening. What do you think of that, brick?’ Brick says, I like an arch.’’

This biography begins at the end; the last days of Louis Kahn’s life, his death, and his funeral – at the age of 73. He left a wife Esther and daughter Sue Ann. But he also had two children to two other women: a 20-year-old daughter Alexandra, and an 11-year old son Nathaniel. The biography not only details the public life of Louis Kahn, it also bring to light his secretive personal life. He was described as an ‘elusive’ man. On his death, his ‘habit of … being routinely unlocatable for an indeterminate period of time, had gone from temporary to permanent.’

The biography then dedicates a chapter to each of Kahn’s major designs. The design of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies showed a ‘highly imaginative visionary’ as well as a ‘practical soul of a maintenance man.’ At the Phillips Exter Library ‘geometry has truly triumphed’ and ‘Louis Kahn understood light like no other architect.’ The National Assembly Building of Bangladesh is ‘Kahn’s most supremely beautiful accomplishment’ despite its ‘initial strangeness.’

But many of his designs were never built.

Was Louis Kahn a mystic or a man of agony? Lesser combines the professional man with the personal man, and shows the complexity of his life and architecture in a fascinating and compelling biography.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).