Student Work
1∕15
Title
Louis Kahn: Concrete Syntax
Project Description
Kahn stated that “the joint is the beginning of ornament […] Ornamentation is adoration of the joint.” But perhaps at its most profound in his work, the joint becomes not just an aestheticization of construction, but provides order to the whole. While his concrete is in many ways nominally still of that world of surface details, recalling the materials of its creation, in the way Kahn uses such surface articulation speaks of form within; his joints become not mere perfunctory meetings of pieces of timber against which concrete was cast, but imply a structural system embedded within mass. Such a system is what so often dictates Kahn’s buildings. In this regard, the joint in the concrete of Kahn is not necessarily to be read as ornament per se, but an element for comprehension of structure (actual or implied). The joint is thus that which conveys the building’s order.