LOUIS KAHN'S EXCESS: DEVELOPMENT TOWARDS A LIBERAL SYMBOLIC FORM

Abstract

Distinct from the other architects, Louis Kahn had placed great emphasis on served and servant space in his works. The amount of space he had allocated for the servant spaces was much more than a conventional building. Furthermore, he sought to formally articulate the servant spaces to a level not less than the served spaces. Therefore, it seems that he had planned for the servant spaces to be “in excess” at the start of the design process. This essay investigates the “excess” spaces in Louis Kahn’s work. Most historians and critics have typically situated Louis Kahn as one of the proponents of the framework of New Monumentality movement that criticised functionalism and attempted to develop a language of monumentality within modernism. Recently, Alexander D’Hooghe proposed to reposition the movement within a liberal ideology where the proponents have a common goal to create a cluster of symbolic forms that resist the dominant ideology. Through his drawings, essays and built works, this essay attempts to investigate Louis Kahn’s peculiar approach to creating forms which seemed excessive at first look but, on closer examination, exposes his attempts to create liberal symbolic forms. Particularly, this research questions Louis Kahn’s resolution to formalise the servant spaces and this essay will be focusing on the mechanical and circulation spaces, which most architects would deem to be less important. This essay would argue that circulation and mechanical spaces, are in fact significant elements toward the development of a liberal symbolic form.