The Salk Institute by Louis Kahn in La Jolla, California. For my money, this is the finest building in North America.

A view of the Teak fronted offices for the scientists. I could write a lot about “truth” and materials here, but I will save that for another time.

A beautiful detail of the poured in place concrete. There are so many moments in this building where you can see the “hand of the artist”. Kahn was such a master of materials that this building which was built over 50 years ago has withstood the onslaught of the salt-watered air and several earthquakes. His recipe for concrete has aged incredibly and, remarkably, there is not a single crack in the building. In the new addition, completed 10 years ago, there are cracks spanning entire walls.

This is the only Teak that has been oiled. Kahn asked that the building age “naturally” The concrete is as-is as well as the teak. Kahn, like many of his contemporaries was obsessed with ruins and envisioned his buildings as such. The natural aging of the teak has given the building a monochromatic beauty. Also, teak stands up very well to the elements (and is nearly extinct and unusable nowadays). Anyhow, about 15 years ago, some poor cleaning man thought that the teak needed oiling and began to do just that. He was able to finish just one panel on the deck of the library before I imagine someone ran out and tackled him. And then Lou Kahn rolled over in his grave.

A study model. NURBS design made physical. I tried to create shadows that would make it difficult to differentiate structure and shadow.

Same study model viewed from inside the library it is growing into.

The ribs I had laser cut from the NURBS design. Designing like this is easy(ish) in the computer and incredibly bloody difficult in the physical world. Again, looking at shadows.

My studiomates and I all bought mini-fridges so we wouldn’t have to dine out as much.