Salk Institute: Louis I Kahn

Louis Kahn's Salk Institute for Biological Studies sits high above theacific Ocean at La Jolla, Southern California. The project presented Kahnith the opportunity to design for a closed community, in this casecientists, involved in concentrated research. In formulating his response tooth the programme and the site, Kahn drew inspiration, from such traditionalrototypes as monasteries and other forms of intellectual retreat. Kahnistinguished between the large, free-plan spaces of the laboratories and theooms for private study, expressing these cell-like spaces as wooden panelledpertures set into otherwise bare concrete walls. As a complex, it remainedncomplete at Kahn's death but it survives as an enduring reminder of hisumanism and architectural genius.