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Steve - Yes, what a great question to ask. That each material has a propensity for certain constructs is something we should never forget. There is perhaps another meaning to that particular sentence and it begins with a similar question - What knowledge does the brick have? A slightly more nuanced understanding is born not out of economic or utilitarian use but rather out of the symbolism of the brick, as it exists in the image of man - made with fire, scaled to the human hand, collected/stacked/layered, portioned cubes of earth. Kahn's incredible legacy of brick is one reason he is called 'the architect's architect'.
Let me digress by noting what I think is perhaps Kahn's greatest contribution to modernism. Talking about his own design methodology he says "I always start with the square. Then I look for that which can disprove it."
thenewgreen · 4809 days ago · link ·
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=exeter+library&um=1&h...
-The Exeter Library looks like he must have started with the "square", this is assuming that his starting point was the external shape of his structures. Was it? -Is it safe to assume that most architects work out to in? Or do you often start on interior spaces and work out? It would seem to me that working from the inside out would be less restricting. How does this process work?
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I visited the Exeter Library two years ago. Actually slept over night in my car in the parking lot because I didn't have money for a hotel. It's a pretty powerful building. The design is made from a series of concentric squares. The process? It's as different as each individual building and each individual architect. Ideally, there wouldn't be one starting point, but many co-existing starting points. To say that an architect works from the inside out or vice versa is too reductionist. One might typically start with a request of types of spaces needed, called the program. In the case of the Exeter, maybe a lobby, reception, reading kiosks, book stacks, etc. You can see some of his earlier sketches of these relationships here in the lower left http://jtpennington.com/italy/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/lib.... You can see him working out ideas in plan and elevation. Although he primarily works in plan (Le Corbusier famously said 'the plan is the ultimate generator') At the same time though, one should be thinking about procession, meaning how and when do we first arrive to view the building - walking to it from across the street, driving to the parking lot etc. then entering the building, seeing the lobby,and finally, maybe searching for a book on the fourth floor or something. This is all called the architectural 'promenade'. The architect at his/her fullest potential designs these environments - high low loud quiet light dark hard soft public private. The way the spaces work together, cohesively, often takes some massaging. Kahn was known for thinking of buildings in terms of serving and served spaces. The stair well is a serving space, the reading room is a served space. The janitors closet is a serving space, the covered entry is a served space. Really though there are a million ways to approach the design of a building - economic, environmental, political, functional, structural....
