Louis Kahn’s daughter describes her journey to publish the architect’s final notebook and the discoveries it holds.
Louis I. Kahn: The Last Notebook, Facsimile and Commentary volume, edited by Sue Ann Kahn, Lars Müller, publisher.
Lars Müller recently published the last notebook of Louis I. Kahn, the legendary American architect who taught at Penn for two decades and whose work is held in the collections of the Architectural Archives. Fritz Steiner, dean and Paley Professor at the Weitzman School, spoke to Sue Ann Kahn ahead of her September 18 public lecture at Penn.
Why did you publish your father’s last notebook?
Well, over 25 years ago, I inherited five of my father’s notebooks from my mother, Esther Kahn. And I knew of the contents of a dozen other of his notebooks. Many of them, but not all, are the same type of Windsor & Newton dark red notebook. But whenever I would open this particular notebook as opposed to the other ones, I felt very close to my father because it seemed to have so much of his personality in it. I always wanted to share that feeling with others, so that they could experience my father and my feelings about him. It's such a private record of his creative mind, and it was never really meant to be seen by anyone, let alone published, so I think it is a very intimate glimpse into his creative process.
Two charcoal perspectives of the FDR memorial, NYC. Top: approach to The Room, showing the bust of Roosevelt. Bottom: Inside The Room, open to the East River on the right.
I’m really glad you did because I think it does offer a glimpse into his creative process. I’m curious what you might have learned through the editorial process and producing the book.
First of all, I had to learn everything about producing and editing a book. I’m a musician, so I’ve edited plenty of recordings, but I’ve never edited a book. And also what it means to make facsimile. I had an extraordinary amount of help from wonderful people, and I learned that facsimiles could be produced in many, many different ways. I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Library, and the chief librarian there, Ken Soehner, brought me out some 35 different examples of how artist sketchbooks could be reproduced in facsimile—from Da Vinci notebooks to Bauhaus publications. I wanted people to feel that they were holding the notebook in their hand and then have a separate volume which would explain what they were looking at. And that turned out to be a very expensive decision, but a good one, I think.
Then I had to learn what was depicted in the notebook. I always knew that it contained a series of eight very expressive charcoal drawings of the Roosevelt Island memorial [Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park], which is about two-thirds of the way through the book. And those drawings, I think, are frankly the crown jewels of this publication. In 2005, I had lent the notebook to an exhibit at Cooper Union, which renewed interest in building the Memorial and led to its construction in 2012. But when Lars [Müller] agreed to publish the book, I had to sit down in earnest and say, “What are all these other things in here?” I knew there were notes for lectures and interviews, there were drawings of other projects, which turned out to be the Yale Center for British Art and a monumental civic development in Iran which I never knew existed. That was the very last project my father took on.
So, off I went with the book to the University of Pennsylvania Architectural Archives, where [Curator and Collections Manager] Bill Whitaker helped me identify what was depicted, confirmed that the notebook was used exclusively in the last year of my father’s life and that the entries were chronological. And that’s not nothing, because these books are anything but systematic or chronological.
In fact, there’s one in which he drew a series in ink of light coming through clouds seen from his airplane on a flight to New Orleans. We can date these to 1972 when he gave a lecture at Tulane. Very much like the series of the Roosevelt Island drawings, drawn quickly in a row. And then he picks that notebook up later, saw that he had already drawn in it, turned it around backwards and started from the back upside down and backwards and made some notes. And the rest is all blank pages. So, chronology and filling up at least half the notebook was anything but a given. So it was important to know that this notebok, in fact, contained only material from the last year of his life and that it was started a year before he died.
And next I had to learn how to design the commentary book, choose which images to add, transliterate my father’s writing, and do all the research for Michael Lewis’s essay.
Two sketches of landscaping details for sunken court entrance to the Yale Center for British Art, graphite with colored pencil
Why did you choose Michael? And the publisher?
Michael and I go way back. He has written eloquently about my father’s architecture and also about his fine arts drawings. In fact, he even organized an exhibition of drawings called Drawn From the Source, where E.J. Johnson, his partner in this, actually went to all the sites that my father drew and photographed them to show how he was interpreting them through drawing.
Michael had written the main essay for the Cooper Union exhibition catalogue in 2005. And we spoke at that time about the notebook and my desire to publish it, and I knew I would want an architectural historian to write an essay, to put a stamp of serious scholarship on the publication. So almost 20 years ago, he agreed to write that essay. I had to hold him to that promise at a very busy time of his life. So I helped by doing the research for his essay and I was his editor as well, so that was quite a wonderful collaboration. And he was very kind throughout this process.
Lars Müller had requested an essay that explained to folks the importance of my father’s architecture, because there might be people getting this notebook who really didn’t know much about who my father was and what he did. And I think Michael did a really brilliant job of being very informative but also in casting a wide net to the readership. Working with Lars, I was very fortunate. I can’t imagine having a better publisher.
The book is beautiful. I mean, it’s just so exquisitely produced.
Lars actually turned this publication down five years ago. But it was actually Michael Lewis that spurred me on to approach Lars again—I had looked for a publisher for the past 15 years, on and off, not steadily. I had lunch with Michael and he said, “There's so much to talk about. 2024 is the 50th anniversary of your father’s death.” And that just stunned me—I couldn't believe that 50 years had gone by. And I remember you came to Penn right after he died, I think.
And so, I began thinking of the book again, and I noticed that Lars was going to be in New York in March of 2023. And I thought, “Well, he already turned me down, but he’s never actually seen the book in person.” So Lars came over and saw the book, and suddenly it was on. This book was produced in under a year, which is amazing.
Lars was absolutely devoted to creating an exact replica of the original. He wrote a short essay in the commentary book which explains what he did, and he taught me how to design the commentary book itself. And then he spent long hours with his lithographer in Germany getting the colors just right.
I remember when I came to Penn in the fall 1975. At this school at the time, you could feel the void. I was in landscape architecture, but [Ian] McHarg was close to your father, and there was a sense that something was missing. What do you think might surprise readers when they pick it up?
I was curious as to what surprised you...
Notes for the 1973 Tiffany Lecture “Architecture and Human Agreement” given at Penn’s Wharton School on October 10th
Something I found fascinating was the process that he went through to give a lecture. What do you think we could learn about him as a lecturer from the notebook?
He became a mesmerizing lecturer in his later days, I would say. He certainly didn’t start out that way, from what I remember as a teenager. But he consistently brought forth these things that were universal: Silence to Light, the Society of Rooms, Singularity to Singularity, the Desire to Express, Wonder and Realization, Thought and Nature. And you can see that he would make notes to organize his mind.
It’s revealing to compare what he actually said to his notes. (This was a great suggestion from my son, Gregory Melitonov, who is an architect and a designer.) It was a godsend to find a complete transcription of his [1973] Tiffany Lecture at the Wharton School. I included a few excerpts from that speech, so that one could compare what he actually said to the notes he made for it. He spoke for hours, but he had just two pages of notes in front of him, and that was typical.
To me, the notes were very poetic in their structure.
Everything he did was very visual. I learned in researching the speech he gave at the American Academy that he was asked for a copy of the speech, and he said, “Well, I can't give it to you. I made it in this little notebook when I was coming up on the train.” The Academy photocopied it, but then they couldn’t read his writing, so they wrote to him and asked, “Could you send us a typed version?” And then he made nine different versions. He would draw the same thing over and refine it. And he arranged the notes on the page like a poem, very architecturally. I wish I could have shown all nine versions, because in one case—the last version—he just crossed out all the capital letters after it had been typed up and sent it off again because he didn’t like the look of it. And we have notes for three lectures in the Notebook.
A Star, a burst of light, the final drawing in the Notebook
For those of us who give lectures as part of our work, it’s inspiring. Is there anything you’d like to add?
You asked me what might surprise readers, and I never really answered that. I can tell you about some of the reactions I’ve gotten. The reviewer in The New York Times said it was as if he had stumbled on it in a drawer somewhere, “Look, there’s a notebook by Louis Kahn!” And then it was just a real thing to hold. I’ve heard from folks who knew my father that, holding the book, they felt they were right there with him as if he were alive.
The very first and possibly the very last sketches that he made of the Roosevelt Island project are in there. You can feel how the project came to fruition and completion during a year, which is practically unheard of in his work. And then there’s the little star, or burst of light, on the last page he drew on. It is just so very human and hopeful, a confirmation of my father’s personality.
Lars and I chose the photograph of a burst of sunlight coming through the slit between the granite piers of the Roosevelt Island memorial to end the commentary book, so that both books end with a little burst of light.
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