SAN DIEGO MUSEUM OF ART

On a recent visit to  the San Diego Museum of Art Paul and I saw an extensive exhibit on the life and architectural works of Louis Kahn.  It was titled The Power of Achitecture. It included over 200 objects related to Kahn's selected buildings and projects in the form of architectural models, plans, original drawings, photographs, films and more. With complex spatial compositions and a mastery of light, Louis Kahn's architecture is regarded as a touchstone of 20th century modernism.

Kimball Art Museum,  Ft. Worth, Texas. 

Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky) (March 5, 1901 – March 17, 1974) was an American architect,^[2] 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. Kahn created a style that was monumental and monolithic; his heavy buildings for the most part do not hide their weight, their materials, or the way they are assembled. Louis Kahn's works are considered as monumental beyond modernism. Famous for his meticulously built works, his provocative proposals that remained unbuilt, and his teaching, Kahn was one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century. He was awarded the AIA Gold Medal and the RIBA Gold Medal. At the time of his death he was considered by some as "America's foremost living architect."^[3]

•                The Salk Institute, La Jolla, California.The two laboratory blocks frame a long view of the Pacific Ocean accentuated by a thin linear fountain that seems to reach for the horizon. It has been named "arguably the defining work" of Kahn.

National Assembly Building in Dhaka, Bangladesh was Kahn's last project, developed 1962 to 1974. Kahn got the design contract with the help of one of his students at Yale Univesity who worked with him on the project. The Bangladeshi Parliament building is the centerpiece of the national capital complex designed by Kahn, which includes hostels, dining halls, and a hospital. According to Robert McCarter, author of Louis I. Kahn, "it is one of the twentieth century's greatest architectural monuments, and is without question Kahn's magnum opus."

Another area in the museum highlighted art of the 20^th century

Still-life with fish by Emil Filla

The first decades of the twentieth century witnessed a schism in the arts as painters and sculptors in Europe and the Americas began to break with academic traditions. Rallying under the banner of expressive freedom and an independence from established institutions, these artists began to explore new social realities, and the even more radical concept of a purely abstract art. Adding to this transatlantic transmission of ideas was an unprecedented internationalism. A new era of travel and communication would, for example, lead Mexican modernist Diego Rivera to Paris. Conversely, wars, suffering, and the dream of a new life led ever more European artists to emigrate to the United States.

by Diego Rivera

by Salvador Dali

Tracing a trajectory through a century of art, from the School of Paris to Surrealism and Pop, the paintings and sculptures on view do not present a traditional survey divided by national schools. Instead, this display combines artists from Europe, the United States, and Latin America to highlight the international aspects of modernism. In so doing, the installation showcases the special strengths of the Museum’s collection of modern and contemporary art together with a    select group of loans.

by Frank Stella

A collage with elements of Picasso'a Guernica

Photo of Guernica by Picass