Modern Architecture

Rakhshaan Qazi-­‐ Modern Architecture, Essay two

Four of the leading architects of the modernist period were Adolf Loos, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies Van der Rode, and Louis Kahn. These architects drew significantly from each other and explored similar ideas in their establishing of a new standard in approaching architecture. Decoration became a taboo while simpler and more functional forms took their place. I am going to be talking about Loius Kahn and how he is talked abut in different texts. Loius Kahn was both more subtle and radical than all the architects mentioned din his book so far. From early on Kahn was interested in housing reform movements and working on mostly government housing projects. Kahn strongly believed that there was a dire need for civic architecture, which would eventually ignite a sense of common purpose and democratic participation. Kahn went from the modernist tradition to a fusion of Viollet-­‐de-­‐Duc and neoclassicism. And eventually to a more or less, unchanging form types. His convergence between the two was suggested by platonic geometries found in nature. He strongly disagreed with the concept of a free plan, and believed in the aggregation of