Louis Kahn - The Last Notebook

Honoring the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Louis Kahn in March 1974, this facsimile edition exquisitely reproduces the notebook in which the renowned American architect sketched and wrote during his travels in the last year of his life.

Anchored by a magnificent set of drawings illustrating the final design of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park in New York City (1973/74, posthumously completed in 2012), “Louis I. Kahn: The Last Notebook” provides an intimate glimpse into the architect’s mind and design process. These private sketches and poetic reflections reveal Kahn’s spiritual understanding of architecture as inclusive of our total environment and shed new light on the architect’s influential philosophy for designing, building and conceiving architecture.

The facsimile pays close attention to the material qualities of the original notebook, replicating its delicate, transparent paper. Made widely available for the first time, the publication includes transcriptions of Kahn’s handwriting by Sue Ann Kahn and a commentary by architectural critic and historian Michael J. Lewis.

Continuing on from earlier investigations into the importance of drawing in the iconic architect’s work at Lars Müller Publishers, “Louis I. Kahn: The Last Notebook” replicates sketching in its most raw, pure form.