Quotes by Louis Kahn

About Louis Kahn:

Louis Isadore Kahn was an American architect, 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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Every time a student walks past a really urgent, expressive piece of architecture that belongs to his college, it can help reassure him that he does have that mind, does have that soul.

Louis Kahn

A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable.

Louis Kahn

Consider the momentous event in architecture when the wall parted and the column became.

Louis Kahn

Architecture is the reaching out for the truth.

Louis Kahn

Architecture is the thoughtful making of space.

Louis Kahn

If people want to see Beaux-Arts, it's fine with me. I'm interested in good architecture as anybody else.

Louis Kahn

Architecture struck me between the eye and the eyeball.

Louis Kahn

You say to a brick, 'What do you want, brick?' And brick says to you, 'I like an arch.' And you say to brick, 'Look, I want one, too, but arches are expensive and I can use a concrete lintel.' And then you say: 'What do you think of that, brick?' Bri...

Louis Kahn

What does a house want to be?

Louis Kahn

The first thing that an architect must do is to sense that every building you build is a world of its own, and that this world of its own serves an institution.

Louis Kahn

How precious a book is in light of the offering, in the light of the one who has the privilege of this offering. The library tells you of this offering.

Louis Kahn

In a small room one does not say what one would in a large room.

Louis Kahn

A room is not a room without natural light.

Louis Kahn

Every building must have... its own soul.

Louis Kahn

The street is a room by agreement.

Louis Kahn

I try to create homes, not houses.

Louis Kahn

Architecture appears for the first time when the sunlight hits a wall. The sunlight did not know what it was before it hit a wall.

Louis Kahn

Architecture is what nature cannot make. Architecture is something unnatural but not something made up.

Louis Kahn

Even a brick wants to be something. A brick wants to be something. It aspires. Even a common, ordinary brick... wants to be something more than it is. It wants to be something better than it is.

Louis Kahn

Design is not making beauty, beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration, love.

Louis Kahn

Author Bio

  • NameLouis Kahn
  • DescriptionAmerican architect (1901-1974)
  • AliasesLouis Isadore Kahn; Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky
  • Born1901
  • Died1974
  • CountryEstonia; United States Of America
  • ProfessionArchitect
  • WorksKimbell Art Museum
  • AwardsRome Prize; Royal Gold Medal; Frank P. Brown Medal