Launches
Deborah Berke, Nathaniel Kahn, Harriet Pattison, Jock Reynolds, and Billie Tsien
Our Days Are Like Full Years
In conjunction with the publication of her new memoir, the Yale School of Architecture welcomes distinguished landscape architect Harriet Pattison in conversation with her son, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn ‘85, Dean Deborah Berke, former director of the Yale University Art Gallery Jock Reynolds, and celebrated architect Billie Tsien '71. John Donatich of Yale University Press will introduce the panel.
In Our Days Are Like Full Years, published by Yale University Press, Pattison recounts her passionate and sometimes searing fifteen-year relationship with legendary architect and longtime Penn faculty member Louis Kahn. Married and 27 years her senior, Kahn sent her scores of letters—many from far-flung places—until his untimely death. This book weaves together Pattison’s own story with letters, postcards, telegrams, drawings, and photographs that reveal Kahn’s inner life and his architectural thought process, including new insight into some of his greatest works, both built and unbuilt. What emerges is at once a poignant love story and a vivid portrait of a young woman striving to raise a family while forging an artistic path in the shadow of her famous partner.
Pattison was Kahn’s romantic partner from 1959 to 1974, and his collaborator on the landscapes of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and the F.D.R. Memorial/Four Freedoms Park, New York. She was a student at the Yale School of Drama when she first met Kahn nearby the site of the Yale University Art Museum.
Yale University Press is pleased to offer a 25% discount on the book with code YEDFY to attendees who order online at yalebooks.com or through Triliteral at 1-800-405-1619.