A questão do espaço central na obra de Louis Kahn.

Abstract

The north american architect Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974) is identified as one of the essential figures of the transient architectural time of the second half of the 20th century. Kahn's late architectural maturation would reveal a unique work, with a particular point of view in the fields of theory, architectural methodology, pedagogy, construction and drawing, designing iconographic buildings and spatialities full of poetic character. The present thesis focuses on the compositive dimension that enlightens all his work, specially the centrality and concentricity motifs that become constant in his work, mainly after the Bath House, in 1951. Along with this quality, his architecture explores the symbolic and plastic characteristics of geometrical forms, like the square and the circle, utilizing/using them to develop centralized spaces conditioned by proportional and order principles. The eight Louis Kahn's project analyses intend to understand the central space exploration in his architecture and the way the compositive processes and geometric forms are articulated to create those spaces.