Louis Kahn: Drawing, Thinking, Architecture Architectural Representation, Work Processes and Designerly Knowledge

• Applicant: Dr.-Ing. Michael Merrill
• Subject Area: Architecture, Building and Construction History, Construction Research, Sustainable Building Technology
• Term: from 2013 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 243024882

Louis Kahn is widely acknowledged as one of the most significant architects of the past century. The project "Louis Kahn: Drawing, Thinking, Architecture" brings together a team of experts for the first comprehensive, systematic and critical study of Kahn´s design process through his drawings and those of his office. The project´s goal is to study the original drawings of Kahn, his associates and collaborators in order to: 1.) better understand the manifold relationships between Kahn´s means of representation and his architecture; 2.) reflect on how the knowledge gained can serve contemporary models of designerly thinking and contribute toward better practice and pedagogy of drawing and representation in architecture. The DFG´s support has allowed research in the Kahn Collection that is unprecedented in both its depth and breadth: to date over 20,000 original drawings have been studied. This comprehensive overview has brought valuable unpublished drawings to light, generated unforeseen knowledge, and given important insights into Kahn´s designerly intelligence. Equally important: this overview has revealed new and thought-provoking ways of bringing the drawings together, presenting, and describing them in order to make the design knowledge that they embody comprehensible. As a result, the book - the goal of this project - has been restructured and lengthened. This has been done in order to: 1.) impart as much new knowledge as possible, 2.) to persue new questions opened through the research, 3.) to present and describe the drawings in new and stimulating ways that best impart their designerly knowledge, and 4.) weave analytic and synthetic views and so to serve as a model of how design research might be both generative/stimulating for practice and open to critical academic method. Specifically, this has meant the addition of several new text essays and numerous "visual essays." The book, originally estimated at 300-320 pages is now to be 420-480 pages long. The expansion of the project has brought with it a number of accomplished researchers/authors, who promise to significantly increase the project´s scope, quality, and prestige. All these additions to the project have required a considerable expenditure of time for new research, writing, layout, and organization, as well as extended deadlines for some authors. To attain its new goals and reach its full potential, the project will be forced to extend beyond the original deadline. The unexpected findings of the research, the first results of the work and the quality of the research team: all these promise a publication that will considerably exceed original expections. The expanded project represents a significant increase in its conceptional reach and informational content, its pedagogic value, and its potential for impact in practice and education.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: USA
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. David Leatherbarrow; Privatdozent William Whitaker