Louis Kahn

The architect of Yale University's clean-cut Center for British Art, the graceful Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, the striking Indian Institute of Management in Ahmadabad, India, and the diamond-shaped Erdmann Hall at Bryn Mawr College receives elegant tribute in Louis Kahn by Joseph Rykwert, professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, with photographs by Roberto Schezen. (The writer and photographer also teamed up for The Villa: From Ancient to Modern.). After situating Kahn within the post-WWII modern social, artistic and critical framework associated with Lewis Mumford, Rykwert turns his attention to 15 specific projects, each of which is featured in about a dozen pages of images accompanied by brief text. Architects and scholars will rejoice in this learned, high-quality, large-format book. 185 illus., 100 in full color. ( Nov.)