Phillips Exeter Academy Library - Choosing Louis Kahn As Architect

Choosing Louis Kahn As Architect

The project to build a new and larger library began in 1950 and progressed slowly for several years. By the mid-1960s, O'Connor & Kilham, the architectural firm that had designed libraries for Barnard, Amherst and West Point, had been chosen to design the new library and had drafted plans with traditional architecture. Richard Day arrived as the new principal of the academy at that point, however, and found their design to be unsatisfactory. He dismissed them, declaring his intention to hire "the very best contemporary architect in the world to design our library".

The school's building committee was tasked with finding a new architect. Influential members of the committee became interested in Louis Kahn at an early stage, but they interviewed several other prominent architects as well, including Paul Rudolph, I. M. Pei, Philip Johnson and Edward Larrabee Barnes. Kahn's prospects received a boost when Jonas Salk, whose son had attended Exeter, called Armstrong and invited him to visit the Salk Institute in California, which Kahn had recently built to widespread acclaim. Kahn was awarded the commission for the library in November 1965.

Kahn had already thought deeply about the proper design for a library, having earlier submitted proposals for a new library at Washington University. He also expressed a deep reverence for books, saying, "A book is tremendously important. Nobody ever paid the price of a book, they only paid for the printing". Describing the book as an offering, Kahn said, "How precious a book is in light of the offering, in light of the one who has the privilege of the offering. The library tells you of this offering".

The building committee carefully considered what they wanted in a new library and presented their ideas to Kahn in an unusually detailed document that went through more than fifty drafts. The early designs included some items that were eventually rejected, such as a roof garden and two exterior towers with stairs that were open to the weather. They were removed from the plans when the building committee reminded Kahn that neither of those features would be practical in New England winters.