7/25/2019 The Room, The Street, The Human Agreement - Luis Kahn

1/13

The Room, the Street and Human Agreement

Essay by Louis I. Kahn

98

25 August, 2012

A+U recently published its 500th issue. To commemorate the occasion, the guest

editors selected notable essays that appeared throughout past editions o the

maga!ine. "ere, #e republish one o these articles by $ouis %ahn, #ho ruminates upon

the &ery essence o architecture and urbanism, poetically 'nitting them together #ith his

obser&ations on the building abric o human e(perience.

)hoto* A+U anuary, 19- * $ouis /. %ahn ilence and $ight

I have some thoughts about the spirit of architecture. I have chosen to talk about the

room, the street, and human agreement.

The room is the beginning of architecture.

https://www.japlusu.com/news/room-street-and-human-agreementhttps://www.japlusu.com/news/search?term=Louis%20I.%20Kahn&vocabulary=Tagshttps://bit.ly/MQmMpuhttps://www.japlusu.com/news/search?term=Louis%20I.%20Kahn&vocabulary=Tagshttps://bit.ly/MQmMpuhttps://www.japlusu.com/news/room-street-and-human-agreement

7/25/2019 The Room, The Street, The Human Agreement - Luis Kahn

2/13

It is the place of the mind.

You in the room with its dimensions, its structure, its light respond to its character, its

spiritual aura, recognizing that what ever the human proposes and makes becomes a

life.

The structure of a room must be evident in the room itself. Structure I believe is the

giver of light. A square room asks for its own light to read the square. It would epect

the light either from above or from its four sides as windows or entrances.

Sensitive is the !antheon. This non"directional room dedicated to all religions has its

light onl# from the oculus above, placed to invest the room with inspired ritual without

favoritism. The entrance door is its onl# impurit#.

So powerful was this realization of appropriate space that even now the room seems toask for its release to its original freedom.

$f the elements of a room the window is the most marvelous. The great American poet,

%allace Stevens, prodded the architect, &%hat slice of the sun does #our building

have'(.

To paraphrase) what slice of the sun enters #our room. %hat a range of mood does the

light offer from morning to night from da# to da# from season to season and all through

the #ears.

*ratif#ing and unpredictable are the permissions the architect has given to the chosen

opening on which patches of sunlight pla# on the +amb and sill that enter, move, and

disappear.

Stevens seemed to tell us that the sun was not aware of its wonder until it struck the

side of a building.

nter #our room and know how personal, how much #ou feel its life. In a small room

with +ust another person what #ou sa# #ou ma# never have said before.

It is different when there is more than +ust another person. Then in this little room the

singularit# of each is so sensitive that the vectors do not resolve. The meeting becomes

a performance instead of an event ever#one sa#ing their lines, sa#ing what the# said

man# times before.

7/25/2019 The Room, The Street, The Human Agreement - Luis Kahn

3/13

Still in a large room the event is of commonalt#. -apport would take the place of

thought.

This room we are in is big without distinction. The walls are far awa# #et I know if I were

to address m#self to a chosen person whose smile would tell me of appreciation Ibelieve the walls of the room would come together and the room would become

intimate.

If I were now reading, the concern would be diction. If this room were the aptistr# of

/lorence, however, its image would have inspired thoughts in the same wa# as person

to person, architect to architect.

)hoto* A+U anuary, 19- * $ouis /. %ahn ilence and $ight

So sensitive is a room.

The plan is a societ# of rooms.

7/25/2019 The Room, The Street, The Human Agreement - Luis Kahn

4/13

The rooms relate to each other to strengthen their own unique nature. The auditorium

wants to be a violin. Its lobb# is the violin case.

The societ# of rooms is the place where it is good to learn, good to live, good to work.

$pen before us is the architect0s plan. 1et to it is a sheet of music.

The architect fleetingl# reads his composition as a structure of elements and spaces in

their light.

The musician reads, with the same overallness, his composition as a structure of

inseparable elements and spaces in sound.

A great musical composition is of such entit# that when pla#ed conve#s the feeling that

all that was heard was assembled in a cloud over us. 1othing is gone as though timeand sound have become a single image.

The corridor has no position ecept as a private passage. In a school the bo# walks

across a hall as in his own classroom where he is his own teacher observing others as

others do. The hall asks for equal position with the librar#.

The societ# of rooms is knit together with the elements of connection which have their

own characteristics.

The stair is the same for the child, the adult and the old. It is thought of as precise in its

measures particularl# for the #oung bo# who aspires to do the floors in no time flat both

up and down. It is good also to consider its landing as a place to sit, near a window with

possibl# a shelf for a few books. The old man ascending with the #oung bo# can stop

here showing his interest in a certain book and avoid the eplanations of infirmit#.

7/25/2019 The Room, The Street, The Human Agreement - Luis Kahn

5/13

)hoto* A+U anuary, 19- * $ouis /. %ahn ilence and $ight

The landing wants to be a room.

The ba# window can be the private room within a room.

A closet with a window becomes a room read# to be rearranged.

The lightless corridor, never a room, aspires to the hall overlooking the garden.

The librar#, the work court, the rooms of stud#, the place of meeting want to group

themselves in a composition that evokes Architecture.

The libraries of all universit# schools sit well in a court entrance available to all its

students as a place of invitation.

The entrance courts and their libraries and the gardens and paths knitting them

together form an architecture of connection.

7/25/2019 The Room, The Street, The Human Agreement - Luis Kahn

6/13

The book is an offering of the mind.

The work court of a school of architecture is an inner space encircled b# work shops

available to construct building eperiments. The rooms of stud# and criticism are of a

variet# of dimension and spaces in their light, small for the intimate talk and work andlarge for the making of full size drawings and group work.

-ooms must suggest their use without name.

To an architect a school of architecture would be the most honored commission.

The Street is a room of agreement.

The street is dedicated b# each house owner to the cit# in echange for common

services.

2ead end streets in cities toda# still retain this room character. Thru streets, since the

advent of the automobile, have entirel# lost their room qualit#. I believe cit# planning can

start with realization of this loss b# directing the drive to reinstate the street where

people live, learn, shop and work as the room out of commonalt#.

Toda# we can begin b# planting trees on all eisting residential streets, b# redefining the

order of movement which would give these streets back to more intimate use which in

turn would stimulate the feelings of well being, and inspire unique street epression.

7/25/2019 The Room, The Street, The Human Agreement - Luis Kahn

7/13

)hoto* A+U anuary, 19- * $ouis /. %ahn ilence and $ight

The street is a communit# room.

The meeting house is a communit# room under a roof. It seems as though one camenaturall# out of the other.

A long street is a succession of rooms given their distinction, room for room, b# their

meeting of crossing streets. The intersecting street brings from afar its infiltrates an#

opening it meets. $ne block in a stream of blocks can be more preferred because of its

particular life. $ne realizes the deadliness of uninterested movement through our

streets which erases all delicac# of character and blots out its sensitive nature given to

it of human agreement.

3uman Agreement is a sense of rapport, of commonness, all bells ringing in unison 4

not needing to be understood b# eample but felt as an undeniable inner demand for a

presence. It is an inspiration with the promise of the possible.

7/25/2019 The Room, The Street, The Human Agreement - Luis Kahn

8/13

2issension does not stem from need but from the mad outburst of frustration. /rom the

mad outburst of frustration. /rom the hopelessness of the farawa#ness of human

agreement.

2esire, not need, the forerunner of the new need, out of the #et not said and #et notmade seems to be the roots of hope in dissension.

3ow inspiring would be the time when the sense of human agreement is felt as the

force which brings new images. Such images reflecting inspirations and put into being

b# inspired technolog#.

asing our challenges on present da# programming and eisting technologies can onl#

bring new facets of old work.

The cit# from a simple settlement became the place of the assembled institutions. Thesettlement was the first institution. The talents found their places. The carpenter

directed building. The thoughtful man became the teacher. The strong one the leader.

%hen one thinks of simple beginnings which inspired our present institutions it is

evident that some drastic changes must be made which will inspire the re"creation of

the meaning, 5it#, as primaril# an assembl# of those places vested with the care to

uphold the sense of a wa# of life.

3uman agreement has alwa#s been and will alwa#s be. It does not belong to

measurable qualities and is therefore eternal. The opportunities which present its nature

depend on circumstances and events from which human nature realizes itself.

A cit# is measured b# the character of its institutions. The street is one of its first

institutions. Toda# these institutions are on trial. I believe it is so because the# have lost

the inspirations of their beginning. The institutions of learning must stem from the

undeniable feeling in all of us of a desire to learn. I have often thought this feeling came

from the wa# we were made, that nature records in ever#thing it makes how it was

made. This record is also in man and it is this within us that urges us to seek its stor#

involving the laws of the universe, the source of all material and means, and the ps#che

the source of all epression, Art.

The desire to learn made the first school room. It was of human agreement. The

institution became the modus operandi. Agreement has the immediac# of rapport, the

7/25/2019 The Room, The Street, The Human Agreement - Luis Kahn

9/13

inspiring force which recognizes its commonalt# and that it must be part of the human

wa# of life supported b# all people.

The institution will die when its inspirations are no longer felt and operates as a matter

of course. 3uman agreement, however, once it presents itself as a realization isindestructible. /or the same reason that a man is unable to work below his level of

comprehension.

)hoto* A+U anuary, 19- * $ouis /. %ahn ilence and $ight

To eplain inspiration I like to believe that it is the moment of possibilit# when what to do

meets the means of doing it.

5it# planning must begin to be cognizant of the strength and character of our present

institutions and be sensitive to the pulse of human relations which senses the new

inspirations which would bring about new and meaningful institutions. Traffic s#stems,

sociological speculations, new materials, new technologies are servants to the pulse of

7/25/2019 The Room, The Street, The Human Agreement - Luis Kahn

10/13

human rapport which promises revelations #et not felt but in the ver# core of human

desires.

1ew spaces will come onl# from a new sense of human agreement which will affirm a

promise of a wa# of life and will reveal new availabilities and point to human support fortheir establishment.

In India and !akistan I realized that a great ma+orit# of the people are without ambition

because there is no wa# in which the# are able to elevate themselves be#ond living

from hand to mouth and what is worse talents have no outlet. To epress is the reason

for living. The institution of learning, of work, of health, or recreation should be made

available to all people. All realms of epression will be opened. ach singularit# will

epress in his wa#.

Availabilities to all can be the source of a tremendous release of the values locked in is

of the unmeasurable in living, the art of living.

$ne cit# can distinguish itself from the other b# +ust the inspirational qualities that eist

in sensing natural agreement as the onl# true source of new source of new realizations.

In that sense the spaces where it is good to learn, where it is good to live and work ma#

remain unepressed if their nature is not redefined.

It is not enough +ust to solve the problem. To imbue the spaces with new found self"

qualit# is a different question entirel#. Solution is a 6how0 design problem, the realization

of 6what0 preceeds it.

About Inspired Technolog#.

The wall that enclosed us for a long time until the man behind it, feeling a new freedom,

wanted to look out. 3e hammered awa# to make an opening. The wall cried. &I have

protected #ou.( And the man said. & I appreciate #our faithfulness, but I feel time has

brought change(.

The wall was sad, man realized something good. 3e visualized the opening as

gracefull# arched, glorif#ing the wall. The wall was terribl# pleased with its arch and

carefull# made +amb.

The opening became part of the order of the wall.

7/25/2019 The Room, The Street, The Human Agreement - Luis Kahn

11/13

The world with its man# people, each one a singularit#, each group of different

eperiences revealing the nature of the human in varied aspects is full of the possibilit#

of more richl# sensing human agreement from which new architecture will come. The

world cannot be epected to come from the eercise of present technolog# alone to find

the realms of new epression. I believe that technolog# should be inspired. A good plandemands it.

)hoto* A+U anuary, 19- * $ouis /. %ahn ilence and $ight

A word about silence and light.

A building being built is not #et in servitude. It is so anious to be that no grass can

grow under its feet, so high is the spirit of wanting to be. %hen it is in service and

finished, the building wants to sa#. &7ook, I want to tell #ou about the wa# I was made.(

1obod# listens. ver#bod# is bus# going from room to room.

ut when the building is a ruin and free of servitude, the spirit emerges telling of the

marvel that a building was made.

7/25/2019 The Room, The Street, The Human Agreement - Luis Kahn

12/13

%hen we think of the great buildings of the past that had no precedent, we alwa#s refer

to the !arthenon.

%e sa# it is the building that grew out of the wall with opening. %e can sa#, in the

!arthenon, light is the space between the columns8 a rh#thm of light, no"light, light no"light which tells the tremendous stor# of light in architecture that came from the wall.

%e are simpl# etending what happened long ago8 the beginning ma# be considered

the most marvelous8 without precedent #et its making was as sure as life.

7ight is material life. The mountains, the streams, the atmosphere is spent light.

9aterial, non"conscious, moving to desire8 desire to epress, conscious, moving to light

meet at an aura threshold where the will senses the possible.

The first feeling was of eaut#, the first sense of harmon#, of man undefinable,

unmeasurable and measurable material, the maker.

At the threshold, the crossing of silence and light, lies the sanctuar# of Art, the onl#

language of man. It is the treasur# of the shadows. %hatever is made of light casts a

shadow. $ur work is of shadow. It belongs to light.

%hen the astronauts went through space, the earth presented itself as a marvelous

ball, blue and rose, in space. Since I followed it and saw it that wa#, all knowledge left

me as being unimportant. Trul# knowledge is an incomplete book outside of us. You

take from it to know something, but knowing cannot be imparved to the net man.

:nowing is private. It gives singularit# the means for self"epression.

I believe that the greatest work of man is that part which does not belong to him alone.

If he discovers a principle, onl# his design wa# of interpreting belongs to him alone. The

discover# of o#gen does not belong to the discoverer.

I invented a stor# about 9ozart. Somebod# dropped a dish in his kitchen, and it made a

hell of a noise. The servants +umped, and 9ozart said, &Ah; 2issonance.( Andimmediatel# dissonance belonged to music, and the wa# he wrote interpreting it

belonged to him.

Architects must not accept the commercial divisions of their profession into urban

design, cit# planning and architecture as though the# were three different professions.

7/25/2019 The Room, The Street, The Human Agreement - Luis Kahn

13/13

The architect can turn from the smallest house to the greatest comple, or the cit#.

Specializing ruins the essence of the revelation of /orm with its inseparable parts

realized onl# as an entit#.

A word about eaut#.

eaut# is an all prevailing sense of harmon#, giving rise to wonder, from it, revelations.

!oetr#. Is it in beaut#' Is it in wonder' Is it in the revelation'

It is in the beginning, in first thought, in the first sense of the means of epression.

A poet is in thought of beaut# and eistence. Yet a poem is onl# an offering which to the

poet is less.

A work of architecture is but an offering to the spirit Architecture and its poetic

beginning.

7ouis I. :ahn, une ?@?