Public Institutions: Louis I. Kahn's Reading of Volume Zero

Stanford Anderson

Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 49, No. 1. (Sep., 1995), pp. 10-21.

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http://www.jstor.org Wed May 16 23:15:41 2007 Public Institutions: Louis I. Kahn's Reading of Volume Zero

STANFORDANDERSON, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In the work of architects like Louis I. Kahn or Volume Zero as a Temporal Concept but I never read anything but the first vol- Frank Lloyd Wright, we discover imagination and ume. Even at that, I only read the first three profound understanding not only of architecture, but also of the societal forces that enable and frequently revealed his concern or four chapters. My purpose is to read Vol- employ architecture. Such imagination and for institutions. He sought to understand ume Zero, which has yet not been written. understanding require critical, reflective, and what it is that people within a given com- That's a kind of strange mind which causes imaginative minds-fueled by criticism of our present condition and hypotheses of what is best munity share. His search was not primarily one to look for this kind of thing. From and most sustaining in our experience. Difficult for physical, built institutions, but rather for such a realization, one thinks of the emer- as such an enterprise is, we have a right to what underlies or motivates these associa- gence of a mind. The first feeling is that of expect this ambition in architects, particularly when they are entrusted to shape our civic and tions. His intuitions or reconstructions of beauty. Not the beautiful, just beauty. It is public realm. institutions were characteristically immate- the aura of the perfect harmony."' rial, abstract, formal. He sought- to under- "Not the beautiful, just beauty," stand the patterns of human association and Kahn says. Rejecting an idealist position their reasons for being. Only then could an (the beautiful), Kahn attends to what is architect build properly-whether the great given (just beauty). Yet he also says, "It is institutions of a society or the more humble the aura of the perfect harmony." In the institutions of house or street. end, Kahn knows what isgiuen to our senses This paper came into being in re- as the evocation of something more. Kahn sponse to two events recognizing major walks a tightrope, seeking "the aura of the public institutions. It emerged in a confer- perfect harmony." ence at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- For now, I am specifically interested nology that examined Kahn's own National in Kahn's attention to English history. Capitol Complex in Dacca, Bangladesh What is this strange mind of Louis Kahn, (1962-1982). Late in 1992, the article was and what is it searching for? Eighteen further developed in a conference on public months later, Kahn returned to the same buildings, held on the occasion of the dedi- theme and gave us more clues: "Then I cation of the new Supreme Court in Jerusa- thought, What would be a harking back, lem, designed by Ada and Ram Karmi. The startingfiom the beginning?. . . I'm particu- organizers of the Jerusalem seminar set forth larly interested in English history, which h- two themes that they considered problem- cinates me. Though it's a bloody history, it atic in the creation of major institutions: still has this quality of a search. However, "the form and language of the contempo- every time I start to read Volume I, I linger rary public building and its obligation to on Chapter One, and I re-read it and re- express the quality and identity of public in- read it and always feel something else in it. 1. Janus sculpture, Roman, Vatican Museums. (From Of course my idea is probably to read Vol- Taidehistoriallisia Tutkimuksia Konsthistoriska Shrdier 4 stitutions." [19781:102.) I propose that Louis Kahn addressed ume Zero, . . . just to peer into this terrific these issues well in both concept and pro- thing-man, who has this great capacity for duction. The National Capitol Complex in putting things into being that nature cannot Dacca documents Kahn's exceptional built put into being."' work in this realm. However, I would argue Kahn's search, his harking back, is the that Kahn characteristically established his search for a beginning-a beginning not in architectural position through a more ab- nature, but for that which man puts into stract search. I propose that Kahn addressed being and nature cannot. It is a search for these issues through a reading of history and the archaic, for the prehistoric, as the num- law-in his case, English history and law: "I ber on his impossible book, Volume Zero, Journal ofArchitectura1Education, pp. 10-2 1 like English history. I have volumes of it, reveals. The search for the prehistoric is not O 1995 ACSA, Inc.

September 1995 JA€ 49/1 10 3. Louis I. Kahn, travel sketch of the Acropolis. Athens, 1951. (R. Wurman and E. Feldman, eds., Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn [Cambr'idge, MA: MIT Press, 19731, plate 18.)

2. Paestum. Basilica. (Photograph by Serge Moulinier. From Elizabeth Ayrton. The Doric Temple) : Thames & Hudson, 19611, p. 17.) implausible. That is what anthropologists sought, at least until recently. It was and still remains what archaeologists seek in the physical remains of ancient sites. One might imagine an architect, an architect with Louis Kahn's turn of mind, to be particularly in- terested to pursue his search among the physical, often architectural, remains of ar- chaic societies. And, of course Kahn did; he preferred Paestum to the Parthenon (Figure 2).3In a drawing of the Acropolis, Kahn gave a curious attention to what is non- canonical (Figure 3). Or again, there is his attention to still more archaic ancient sites (Figure 4). Nonetheless, in the passages quoted, Kahn speaks of the books he collected and of his renewed searches for the archaic by turning to modern texts, to history. Why English history? Why should this Jewish man, who emigrated from Estonia to America as a boy, direct his attention to - ? From the second quotation, we learn that this reference is more than inci- 4. Kahn, travel sketch of the hypostyle hall. Kalmak. 1951. (Wurman and Feldman. eds dental: He tells us that he is particularly in- Notebooks and Drawings, plate 10.) terested in English history; it fascinates him.

1 1 Anderson Then he offers a reason: "Though it's a ductive structure. Roman law and Catholic there is an earlier, original form to which bloody history, it still has this quality of a canon law are codified. Such law presides appeal can be made, this may well be a fun- search." The search is now not only Kahn's over historical change. Codified law is given, damentalist revolt. To continue from search for beginnings; he reads English his- not searched-searched neither backward Pocock: Wherever it [the original form of tory as itself a search. This must also be a nor forward. The English conception of that the law] survives, or even can be imagined, search extended in time, a search that is also moment is, however, very like the moment there is the possibility of a fundamentalist directed forward. we are entertaining in Kahn's thought: a Ja- revolt, a demand for return to the original Janus-like, Kahn's search for begin- nus-like construction in which we look back sources. Such revolts, at once radical and nings is not merely antiquarian nor merely through the succession of events to a time reactionary, involve the repudiation of tra- the identification of sources for imitation, immemorial in order that we may confirm dition; they raise the problems of how the but rather the search for an impulse that may an ancient, unwritten constitution and thus original form of authority may be known, still inform us today. But again, why English affirm the customs and institutions that also and what relation (other than traditional) it history? I suggest two reasons, one quite or- must be adapted as one meets the contingen- may bear to the present [emphasis added].5 dinary and the other more profound, that cies of the present and future. There is the Yet, at least in this passage, I think stem from Kahn's own claim that English English sense of law, custom, and institu- Pocock fails to emphasize the difference be- history has the quality of a search. The ordi- tion, which relies on ancient, but constantly tween (1) a fundamentalist revolt that relies nary is this: Though an immigrant boy from renewed, agreement rather than rule-reli- on the survival of what is taken to be the another culture, Kahn grew up and worked ance on agreement whether we search back- original form of the law and (2) a fundamen- in a society with English roots. He lived ward to the ancient constitution or forward talist revolt in which the original form must most of his life in Philadelphia and taught in our historical unfolding. That agreement be imagined. In these two cases, fundamen- most extensively at Yale University and the is given weight by appeal to precedent, from talism based on given versus imagined form, University of Pennsylvania. His society was time out of mind, and maintained as agree- "the problems of how the original form of that of the eastern United States in the first ment by adaptation to current conditions. It authority may be known, and what relation three-quarters of the twentieth century-a is the English appeal to the unwritten consti- . . . it may bear to the present," are quite dif- society whose American roots were not suf- tution and to tradition. ferent. It is in this difference that I see Kahn's ficiently archaic for Kahn's program and yet Tradition does not exist only in En- attraction to English history, and especially a society whose English roots were palpable. gland, however. I must acknowledge that I his imaginative reading of Volume Zero, For this American society, Volume Zero was have just now exaggerated the fixity of writ- compared with an appeal to written law or most plausibly to be sought in England. If ten law. Under such law, there may also be the apparent authority of Volume One. one were to identi@ an archaic impulse that tradition. J.G.A. Pocock, whose writings Under whatever law, for a truly tradi- still resonated in this society, it might come inform the argument I am making, ob- tional society, holding to its custom, work- from England. For that matter, given served, "Roman law tended to become a tra- ing without question, its Janus-figure resides Britain's then-recent world dominance, En- dition in continuous adaptation; and in in the present. If the present comes to appear glish sources might quite possibly have some such traditions the most recent expression problematic, conviction in this traditional resonance in much of modern world society. of authority, . . . may come to be of more but contemporary Janus-figure is lost; if cus- However, I think Kahn may have had importance than the original form of the tom were sound, how could time have a more profound reason to say of English law."Were Pocock points to a tradition brought us to this problematic state? The history: "Though it's a bloody history, it still that maintains the authority of the law as projection of that custom into the future has this quality of a search." Whether we given, even if newly formulated. Note the must appear doubly problematic. When such look to the beginnings of the intellectual radical difference between an unwritten questions and revolt arise within a society conception of history in Europe or to the constitution and an authoritative code, that possesses a known original form of law conditions of the time before history writing, whether old or new. Continuing with or authority, the authority of Janus's back- there is a close relationship of history and Pocock's Roman example, in this as in other ward view may be reaffirmed in ascribing to law. If we look to the European continent, traditions there may also come dissatisfac- it a farsightedness and thus a capacity to re- there is written law, with its fixity and de- tion and revolt. If, as in the Roman case, trieve and reinstate the fundamentals-to

September 1995 JAE 49/1 1 2 reinstate the known original form of law. within it the remains, the wreckage In Kahn's drawings of Carcassonne, as This is fundamentalism in the strict sense of perhaps, but also the vital germs and in all drawings, there is of course selectivity the word. above all the irretrievably lost realities and reductiveness, but there is more than this In the English model, as long as tradi- of the preceding Alpha. . . . The point (Figures 10 and 11). Kahn draws battlements tion is unquestioned, Janus peers back of origin will always elude it; . . . From and towers with selective emphases that lead through the long chronology of custom and A to 2,biblical history in the Jewish away from what would normally be recog- institution with some posited grasp on the conception remains open. A is not the nized; he gives a counterintuitive emphasis to ancient, unwritten constitution. Here, too, beginning, but what went before. And the battlements-to a system of form that is when question and revolt arise, custom and Z is not the end, but the opening. . . . the slighter one in its context but that is, for institution must have broken down; but no At the opposing doors of history, the Kahn, the more provocative one in a projec- long view to original authority is possible. entrance and the exit both remain tive sense. Kahn enters Carcassonne imagina- The refraction of broken custom must ob- free. Genesis and Exodus are infinite tively to propose beginnings and project a scure the gaze of Janus, while the distant and eternal risks. And so are life and possible architecture. If we now compare view of a known original form is also denied. death-the Genesis and Exodus of in- drawings of Carcassonne by Viollet-le-Duc Janus must retreat in time to a moment dividuals and communities alike, at and Kahn, we may first be struck by their when custom and tradition are as unsullied every moment of their history.' similarities (Figures 12 and 13), yet the older as possible and the imagination of the an- drawing can be seen to attend to the object, cient constitution is as little distorted as pos- while Kahn's penetrates it. It is Viollet's sible. It is this form of learning from search for Volume One compared with that beginnings, this imaginative, probing quest, The Volume Zero of Architectural Form for Volume Zero. Both architects look to that Kahn attempts in reading Volume Zero. early forms; both are rationalists. Neither Allow me to interpolate here a ques- Drawings by Louis Kahn, especially when Kahn nor Viollet-le-Duc seeks an unques- tion and risk a speculative answer. How did compared with those of other thinkers in ar- tioned authority. Nonetheless, Viollet-le-Duc Kahn invent this notion of Volume Zero? chitecture, clarify these observations while seeks to know the actual document-Volume Why did it appeal to him? I am told that the also making the argument more concrete One-so thoroughly that it will reveal its six "orders" of the Talmud each begin with architecturally. Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet- principles. As he himself argued, the modern page 2; that the Talmud contains no page l! le-Duc, in his drawing of the Porte Nar- architect should be able to build in his own Did this absence, suggestive of the absence bonnaise at Carcassonne, , had of day as the ancient masters would have done if of the concrete knowledge of ultimate au- course an immediate purpose different from they were placed in modern circumstances. So thority, also suggest to Kahn a parallel with that of Kahn: He was involved in the resto- every detail of the ancient work may inform English history and its unwritten constitu- ration of old monuments (Figure- 5). Viollet- Viollet-le-Duc's quest. Kahn seeks an imagi- tion? Or again, and now with the support of le-Duc also pursued a different intellectual native projection beyond the detail, beyond Jewish scholarship, the Hebraic tradition agenda, the definition of architectural prin- the particularity of the ancient monument. It looks beyond Genesis for its sense of what ciple as revealed in original documents in is his quest and his projection, one that may went before: contrast to Kahn's search for the impulse for serve his vision in his circumstance. Kahn's an imaginative projection (Figure 6). In his drawings of Sainte Ckcile in Albi are still Moreover, in the biblical universe, drawings of medieval fortifications and the more rudimentary in their representation and there is no point Omega for the war machines they had to resist, Viollet-le- more forceful in their imagined projections simple reason, first, that there is no Duc studied the reality of Volume One to (Figures 14 to 16). point Alpha. The Hebrew Bible be- provide the authority for principles he as- Kahn's Volume Zero contrasts with gins not with the first letter of the al- cribed to that reality (Figure 7). Such prin- the texts of other architectural theoreticians phabet, but with the second, Bet- ciples, as learned in the study of medieval as well. Consider for a moment the thought Bereshit. History does not begin with street types, buildings, and construction sys- and the drawings of John Ruskin (Figure Genesis; it is the Parousia of a history tems, inform his propositions for modern 17). Ruskin characteristically renders a por- which is already mature, which carries urban construction (Figures 8 and 9). tion of a building carefully, a telling detail in 6. Kahn, travel sketch of a portal and surroundings, Carcassonne, 1959. (Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania, LIK 945.9. Gift of Richard Saul Wurrnan.)

5. Eug6neEmmanuelVioBet-leDuc, watercolor of Porte Narbonnaise, Carcassonne, France. (France; Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites. O Arch. Phot. / S.P.A.D.E.M.)

7. Viollet-leDuc, drawing of a fortification and a war machine. 8. Viollet-leDuc, drawing of medieval timber frame. (Dictionnaire 9. Viollet-leDuc, street building with a modern iron frame and (Dictionnaire raisonne de I'architechrre du XI1 au XW siPcle, vol. raisond, vol. 7, p. 48.) ceramic infill. (Eniretiens sur I'architechrre, atlas Paris: A. Mwel 1 Paris: A. Mwel et Cie, 18751, p. 365.) et Ci, 18641, plate 36.)

September I995 JAE 49/1 14 10. Kahn, trawl sketch of battlements and towers, 11. Kahn, trawl sketch of battlements, Carcassonne, 1959. Carcassonne, 1959. (Architectural Archives of the Universty of (Louis I. Kahn Drawings Ros Angeles. CA: Access Press. 19811. Pennsylvania, LIK 945.7A. Gii of Richard Saul Wurman.1 plate 10.1

12. Viollet-leDuc, drawing of Visigothic Tower and Porte de 13. Kahn. travel sketch of Carcassonne. 1959. (Architectural I'Aude. Carcassonne. (France: Caisse Nationale des Monuments Archives of the University of Pennsylvania. LIK 945.3.3. Giiof Historiques. Eug&neVmllet-l&uc 1814-1879 Paris. 19651. Richard Saul Wunan.1 plate 39.1

15 Anderson which he seeks to embrace an entire social and aesthetic position, taken as truth. In his drawing of Pisa, as in others of San Michele in Lucca, the precious and varied work of the master masons represents the freedom, in- vention, and individual responsibility that assertedly bring joy to work. Kahn, in Pisa, takes a holistic view, encompassing not only the cathedral and tower, but even emphasiz- ing the modern plantings in the distance (Figure 18). More urbanistically, Ruskin lav- ishes on his drawing the same rich detail as

14. Albi, Ste. Cbcile, apse. WIT, Rotch Visual Collections.) that of his Venetian subject while Kahn fur- ther simplifies the bold forms of San Gimignano (Figures 19 and 20).

Relations to Beginnings

Now we will return to Pocock for further observations on the relation of these received 15. Kahn, travel sketch of apse of Ste.Cbcile Cathedral, Albi, 1959. (Wurman and Feldman, plate 23.) environments, these ancient authorities, to the present: "In their [the fundamentalists'] belief that a document's original meaning could be directly applied, once found, to modern conditions, we recognise the hu- manist ideal of imitation, . . . [the] unhistorical ideal of imitation, which we may describe, in our terminology, as involv- ing the rupture of a traditional relationship with a past and substitution of a new one."' As we have known in revival move- ments in architecture, such imitation can be relatively literal. Quite otherwise, in the in- stances of Viollet-le-Duc and Ruskin, that new relationship is the appeal to universal principles. These universal principles might 16. Kahn, travel sketch of apse of Ste.Cbcile Cathedral, AIbi, 1959. (Wurman and Feldman, plate 16.) ultimately rest on nature and reason, as they typically did in both French classicism and Viollet-le-Duc's gothicism. But consider again the English example, not just in archi- tecture, but generally. There, too, appeals to nature and reason are not absent. Yet in England, lacking the authenticating original 17. John Ruskin, wash drawing of a detail of the apse of the Duomo, Pisa. R Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.) document, the appeal to principle could 18. Kahn, travel sketch of Bapbstery, Duomo, tower and planbng and bulld~ngsbeyond, Plsa, n.d. (Wurman and Feldman, plate 19.)

d53.,r *%L+ii

19. Ruskin, wash drawing, Casa Contarini Fasan, Venice, 1841. (0Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.)

20. Kahn, travel sketch of the Piazza della Cisterna, San Gimignano, c. 1928-29. (ArchitecturalRecord Uan. 19311,O 1931 by McGrawHill, Inc. All rights resewed. Reproduced with the permission of the publisher.)

17 Anderson also rest on the assumption of immemorial ning and have become operational. first place. Yet, with Kahn, there is a tempo- agreements, in what Pocock, with specific They aren't felt in the same way they ral subtext that does connect Volume Zero reference to English fundamentalists, should be felt. . . . and his present-a connection which thus termed "a vehement conviction that what Human agreement is as simple as can, must, lead to current, effective action in ought to be had once been."'Pocock thus Isn't it a nice day today? which the impetus of the imagined moment gives a formulation to English fundamental- Agreement is not equal in each, of beginning breathes new life into our cul- ism that is very close to a later aphorism of but there is a sense of unanimity tural forms. Kahn's that is so well known that it gave the without example. It is what made the Kahn appears as contemporary social title to a collection of his thoughts: What school a school, or what inspired the critic and traditionalist, as a social inventor Will Be Has Always Been." first room. It was an undeniable and a seeker of beginnings. If we were to In the passages quoted from Kahn, agreement that this man who seems compare Kahn with our array of fundamen- this form of the search for beginnings is re- to sense things which others don't talists, then his association is with those fun- vealed. Kahn reads Volume One only to in- should be near the children so they damentalists who rely on an intuited state of tuit Volume Zero. Thus, typically, Kahn can benefit from such a man. This nature and rationality, not an authorizing privileges the looking back, his "harking simple beginning when the teacher text. Kahn sees the institution as the neces- back, starting from a beginning," for it is didn't call himself the teacher and the sary mediating entity of agreement and cus- there that he locates the principles that he student was not called a student was tom; yet the institution is itself subject to uses, ahistorically, both to chasten and to the beginning of the sense of school. criticism and reformation by the light of its accommodate the current state of customs So it is with other buildings that inspiration. and institutions. Recall the end of the sec- present themselves as belonging to Kahn's move from the concept and ond quotation from Kahn: "just to peer into the original inspirations. form of an institution to design and build- this terrific thing-man, who has this great . . . Institutions are quasi-meeting ing is perhaps most clearly illustrated in the capacity for putting things into being that groups that want to uphold some as- process and realization of his Unitarian nature cannot put into being.'"' What are pect of our democracy. " Church in Rochester, New York. Here, as these things that man puts into being? If generally, Kahn begins by intuiting institu- Kahn, at that moment, had physical arti- In Volume One, chapter one, Kahn tions from time out of mind. He begins facts in mind, he would not have needed might learn of early institutional forms, but with a form diagram that locates a space of history books, nor would he have needed to he seeks a still more archaic condition. He question within concentric zones of access intuit a Volume Zero. He would have intuits the moment before any institution or to the community of searchers (Figures 2 1 turned to archaeology and the history of ar- any architectural setting: the inspiration, the and 22). From that intuition, he makes his chitecture. Although Kahn does not speak moment of beginning when, beneath a tree, well-known move back to architecture itself. of institutions in the quotations given at the a man and a child found themselves as "To begin is the time of belief in outset, he does so often enough. And for teacher and student without even knowing form," says Kahn." His search for institu- Kahn, it is institutions that fulfill the Janus those words or this relation. It is a moment tional beginnings provides the source of role to which I have been referring. in nature, supported by reason, and may what Kahn calls "form." It is the accommo- serve as the guide to action. From his posi- dation of that form to the contingencies of I know that institutions is not a word tion in Volume One, Kahn's Janus-figure the present that he calls "design." Probing to use, but it's an excellent word. It looks back and intuits the events of Volume the concept and, in Kahn's sense, the form tells you that there is an agreement in Zero. From his position in Volume One, of an institution offers the means to propose back of the making. Institutions are Kahn's Janus-figure rejects the history, the beginnings. School has its beginnings in the there because of the inspirational later history, he has entered. He does not quest for learning, which manifests itself in quality which made them at the mo- read on, for this could only be the historical the special relation of two people whom we ment when silence and light meet in story of how the charismatic moments of can only later recognize as teacher and stu- a realization, but they have lost the Volume Zero degenerated into the prob- dent. Kahn argues, "A realization of what inspirational impact of their begin- lematic present that set off the search in the particularizes the domain of spaces ideal for

September 1995 JAE 49/1 1 8 school would make the designing of an insti- tution of learning challenge the architect and awaken in him an awareness of what school wants to be, which is the same as say- ing an awareness of the form: s~hool."'~ For Kahn, a church-and perhaps particularly the undogmatic Unitarian as- sembly-has its beginnings in associations that seek to answer the question "Why?" It is this primordial question, and the condi- tions under which a person might join the fellowship of those who share that question, that provokes the form that we later and dangerously give the name "church." This 21. Kahn, form diagram with plan of first design, 1958, and diagrams of the design evolution. Unitarian Church, was to appear in Kahn's development of the Rochester. (H. Ronner, Louis I. Kahn: Complete Works Rochester church, but a very similar argu- 1935-74, Basel: Birkhauser, 1977, p. 118.1 ment had already appeared in 1960:

If you were given the problem of de- signing a chapel for a university, cer- tainly you would not bring out all your palette of stained glass and mosa- ics or devices which you know a chapel must have, but simply think of it as a place which for the moment you won't define because it is too sacred. Then you put the ambulatory around, and then you put an arcade around the ambulatory so you don't have to go into the ambulatory, and a garden around the arcade so you don't have to go into the arcade, and then a fence around the garden so that you don't have to go into the garden. Ritual is inspired, not set. I think it begins with the sense of a man who gets a criticism from a fine teacher and this instills in him a sense of dedication and he goes by the chapel and winks at it-he doesn't have to go in. He doesn't wink at the gymnasium, he winks at the chapel.14

22. Kahn, plan and elevations of 'Second Phase, First Version." It is equally significant that, despite Unitarian Church. Rochester. 196061. (Ronner. Louis I. Kahn, the search for beginnings that I am seeking p. 118.)

19 Anderson to demonstrate in Kahn's thought, his posi- tion is exploratory, nonauthoritarian, not rigid. Although his search denies innova- tions that are offensive to the beginning form, it is nonetheless also malleable in re- sponse to those contingencies of time and place that give differentiation and contem- porary effectiveness to the institution.

Conclusion

The impetus to write this essay came from a quandary. I have a deep mistrust both for fundamentalism and for appeals to origins. Such appeals do not have an ultimate, de- monstrable basis, but are at best matters of agreement. Yet, in the hands of fundamen- talists, they are invoked as authority to di- minish inquiry and opportunity, to promote coercion and control rather than liberation. Nevertheless, in Kahn, I sense a related pursuit without the negative conse- quences. How can this be? I suggest an an- swer in distinguishing various kinds of fundamentalism-and indeed a similar en- terprise (including that of Kahn) that I am distinguishing from fundamentalism. As we have seen, the appeal to origins or beginnings differs according to the source to which appeal is made: authoritative ori- gins versus malleable, interpreted begin- nings. Such variants are further divided according to the mode of interpreting the source. A strict fundamentalism relies both on a known authoritative source and inter- preting it literally or at least narrowly; this 23. Frank Uoyd Wright, Oak Park, Unity Temple, 1906. (F. L. Wright, Ausgefiihrte Bauten, Berlin: form is nontraditional. Pocock's interpreta- Wasmuth, 1910, plate LXN.) tion of Roman law made of it a system with a known authoritative source that is none- theless superseded by a succession, a tradi- tion, of reformulated authoritative codes. If I may risk a comment on preliminary advice, Hebraic law and custom is different again; it is a strongly hermeneutid tradition, relying on authoritative early documents while also by persuasion, in being reasonable, in fitting Notes according authority to later and even current to our inarticulate but engrained sense of jus- interpretation. English law and history tice and hope. In no small part, that search, 1. Louis I. Kahn, What Will Be Has Always should be a highly traditional system with and our conviction in its results, is set by the Been: The Words of Louis I. Kahn, ed. Richard Saul Wurman (New York: Access PresslRizzoli, 1986),p. sources immemorial and unwritten; if the condition in which we find ourselves. Recip- 15 1, from a speech by Kahn at Aspen, CO, June 19, tradition finds itself in crisis, then the appeal rocally, the fruits of that search must be rein- 1972. must be to a noncodified source that is, in terpreted for our present-and, in the case of 2. Ibid., p. 245, from a speech at , turn, subject to interpretation within the architecture, also be given physical form. Our December 20, 1973. problematic present. conviction in the search for beginnings is 3. Eugene Feldman and Richard Saul Wurman, eds., The Notebooks and Drawings ofLouis I. As opposed to fundamentalist appeals thus informed by its effectiveness in criticiz- ICahn, 2d ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1973),p. to authority, I have preferred to term Kahn's ing and then acting on our problematic con- 257. quest "a search for beginnings." It is, at least dition-how we would like to chasten and 4. J.G.A. Pocock, "The Origins of the Study of potentially, a less troublesome form-though create the institutions of our time. This the Past: A Comparative Approach," Comparative perhaps only in the subtle hands and mind of search is Janus-faced. Kahn's search for the Studies in Society and History 412 (1962):226. 5. Ibid. a Kahn. This search for beginnings is one Volume Zero of English history pursued that 6. Andrt Neher, "The View of Time and His- that has no authenticating document or goal; his will to hold our schools, churches, tory in Jewish Culture," in L. Gardet et al., eds., Cul- form. Thus, unlike those versions of funda- and libraries to their higher purposes, institu- tures and Time (Paris: UNESCO Press 1976),p. 156. mentalism based on authority, this search for tionally and architecturally, was both the 7. Pocock "Origins of ther Study of the Past," beginnings possesses no ultimate, demon- cause and the fruits of that search. p. 227. 8. Ibid, 233. strable basis. In this it is like the Volume Finally, I would reemphasize that 9. Kahn, What Will Be. Zero that Kahn named but that indeed, Kahn's search was hypothetical: He did not 10. Here Kahn does echo Ruskin. At the be- ought to stand at the far side of English his- so much find as project. Also, in his back- ginning of "The Lamp of Memory," chapter 6 of tory. But Kahn is not interested in this Vol- ward glance, he projected. He did not find Ruskin's The Seven Lamps of Architecture (London: ume Zero as the source of an unbroken truth, but propositions that he sought to Smith, Elder, 1849),he waxes enthusiastic in a recol- lection of the natural beauties of a landscape in the tradition. Tradition is hopelessly ruptured; make convincing for us-propositions that Jura. Yet in a thought experiment that would place institutions have lost their sense of purpose; might win our agreement. What I am ob- that landscape in the New World, the rich hues of society must be criticized and changed. serving is not a matter of his being correct. flowers and river fade, for they are no longer part of a Kahn's enterprise is little concerned with his- When Frank Lloyd Wright, at Unity scene marked by the constructions of humanity nor tory or tradition; rather it is reciprocally criti- Temple, faced a very similar cultural pro- "dyed by the deep colors of human endurance, valor, and virtue." cal and creative between the present and that gram as that of Kahn's Unitarian Church at 11. Kahn, What Will Be, p. 156. imagined time immemorial. The present and Rochester, Wright proposed not a concen- 12. Feldman and Wurman, Notebooks and Volume One (after all, there is some histori- tric form as did Kahn, but a binuclear sanc- Drawings, p. 258. cal evidence) inform Kahn's vision of Vol- tuary and school (Figures 22 and 23). Both 13.Ibid., p. 262. ume Zero. This is an imaginative projection institutionally and architecturally, Wright 14. Louis I. Kahn, "Philosophical Horizons," AIA Journal3316 (June 1960): 100. backward, the conjecture of a basis that may and Kahn made quite different but equally both chasten and create the institutions of compelling claims on our imagination and our time. It is a search backward in time for understanding of the place of such institu- a proposition that must win its claim on us tions and of ourselves in a social world.