Louis Kahn Exeter Library
Ever hear of Louis Kahn? A few years before contemporary architecture moved into its Postmodernism, Deconstructivist, Post-Post Modernism, etc. phases
Louis Kahn, one of our most brilliant architects, designed late in his career a library for Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH in 1970 that stands as one of his greatest pieces.
A friend and I took the day and headed up there from Boston, 11/2 hours away. Had a good lunch too, at the Green Bean Restaurant, right in town (highly recommended).
With some ideas from the Coliseum in Rome, the library, named the Class of 1945 Library, is a brick and glass cube that integrates with the other 19th century buildings nearby on campus, also in brick.
Minimal and understated, the exterior stands in service to the library's function, almost neutral, as a counter to what's inside.
Which is a tour de force of innovation, engineering, warmth and solemnity.
Huge supporting concrete blocks formed as large circles or openings letting in light, keeping the space open and spacious. Circles within a cube: simply breathtaking and elegant.
Look up and you find this:
With a prevailing palette of concrete, oak and beige carpet with a little hint of marble thrown in for good measure, the building exudes quality, class and impeccable pedigree, appropriate to this high-end and rather exclusive boarding school.
We were there in June so things were slow, virtually no students at all. But I can't imagine the library being raucous and loud, as it felt more like being in a tomb or place of worship to me. Whispers came almost without thought, in regards to the place itself, a kind of reverence and respect for being in a place of truly exceptional design.
I found a few of the details wonderful:
Yes, but Neal, I hear you asking, isn't this a Photo Blog? Well, yes, it is but in something like what I call a creative life (same category when I wrote last spring about Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water) inspiration comes in all shapes and sizes. This is about input and seeing what happens from it and, mixed in, sheer joy.
It is my pleasure to bring this to you.
Want to read more about Kahn? There's a great piece in the New York Review of Books about him, here, written by Martin Filler.
Related series
Solothurn, CH
The Solothurn, Switzerland series was made in the summer of 1983.
As this was only the 3 third or fourth series made (after Nantucket and Yountville for isntance) i was still early days in this manner of photographing.
The prints are about 11 inches square and are archivally processed and toned with Selenium.
If you'd like to see the work, please contact 555 Gallery in Boston.
Yountville, CA 1981
After making the Nantucket pictures the year before, I tried to make several other series but was having little luck. On a spring break trip to California my soon-to-be wife and I were staying at an inn in Napa Valley in the town of Yountville. Getting up early the next morning, I started walking through the side streets of the little town.
The light was soft, gray and a little foggy and I made this series. Of course, after this I assumed that the light would have to be gray from that point on in making work this way. It wasn’t until 1996 with the Portland, Maine series that I proved my original theory wrong.
Nantucket, Massachusetts 1980
The Nantucket pictures are the first “series” I did. Made, over 30 years ago, it is amazing that making this one modest group of pictures began a whole career.
I was teaching a summer photography workshop on the island of Martha’s Vineyard and took the students on a field trip to Nantucket for the day for a change of pace. When the ferry landed, I told the students to go make pictures and I would see them late in the afternoon to head back to Martha’s Vineyard. Off they went and so did I.
I had no real idea that something major was going to happen but it was one of those times when much of the work I had done until then was preparing me for how I would photograph that day. It was right: the light, the scale, the camera, my seeing, my effort to try to make a group of pictures that would connect to each other in a specific sequence to make a whole that was larger than its individual parts. After a few hours and several rolls of film I knew I’d had a breakthrough and broke down in tears when telling my experience to a friend on the ferry ride back home. Several months later the prints were finished and the next year they were shown in a summer group show at Light Gallery in NYC and in a one-man show at the RI School of Design Museum in Providence, RI. But more important to me was that I had found a way to make pictures that still serves me well today.
