The Kahn's Love: Light

“Light reveals the architecture”

Light is a theme that transcends physical dimensions, and is always connected to life. Kahn used to think that “All material in nature, the mountains and the streams and the air and we, are made of Light which has been spent, and this crumpled mass called material casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to Light.” For him, light is the maker of material, and material’s purpose is to cast a shadow.

Light is an element so important, that it can define the boundaries of a space or the very structure of the building. Kahn can’t define space without natural light. This is why his works are a reflection of a deep study of classic theories and criteria that helps us understand architecture in its maximum expression.

Light is one of Kahn’s main principles for architecture, only with it the spaces become alive and speak of those pure geometries.

For Kahn:

“The space of a building has to be read as a harmony of illuminated spaces. Each space must be defined by its structure and by its naturally illuminated character. Even a space thought to be dark must have enough light from a mysterious source to show us how dark it really is”.

Kahn teaches us that the choice of a structure is the choice of the light that forms that space. Artificial light is only a short, static moment of light, it’s the night light and can never be the same as the effects created by the hours of daylight and the wonder of seasons.

“The way a space is formed implies greatly the conscience of light’s possibilities. The forms that shape a space implies that light penetrates already in it, and the choice of the very structure is at the same time the choice of the kind of light desired”.

Kahn’s work influenced contemporary architecture and they are an invaluable example that students utilize to analyze and understand architecture.

Ayub Hospital

Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas; is a study case in light’s treatment. The building is covered by sixteen parallel vaults that follow the form of a square floor plan. The vault’s superior part, there’s no keystone: the vault is not united and allows filtered light to be directed in the interior. The exterior walls end in a semicircle that is covered with glass between vault and Wall to allow light in.

Light not only develops as a visual phenomenon before our eyes, but it also is the visual representation of that which isn’t visual: it’s provided with symbolic, psychic and imaginary meaning.

National Assembly in Bangladesh

In the Salk Institute, the windows are directed to receive light from the morning sun so it bathes the rooms, filling them with life and utility. In context, the building is implanted aligned to the norte, so the windows absorbs the best light, every day. The corridor are always protected by the shadows. This game of shadows and illuminations, it provides the most entertaining spaces for working, or differentiating the crossing sites.

Corridor of Salk

Study of Salk

The complex, make free the space between building. In this big space, the light is the protagonist, and all their expressions (night, day, twilight), make it the space unparalleled and unforgettable .

Kahn’s goal is to produce spaces that stay in the memory, shocking the eye and the feelings of the spectator. An unforgettable memory of light, forms and space. Light is something born in the building, a manifestation of its reality. Said by Kahn:

“Architecture is created in a spot between ideal silence and real illumination…”

Yale Center of British Art