Poetic-Architectonic Realizations: Louis Kahn and Fumihiko Maki

This study of how poetic content, which both underlies and is revealed by the architectural design process, explores the work of two late twentieth-century modernist architects, Louis Kahn and Fumihiko Maki. Linguistic/poetic elements are revealed in an examination of each architect's built environments. The process and product of creating poetry and designing architecture share essential similarities. Various modernist precepts demonstrate an organic construct of poetic and architectonic experience, when developed within vital design programs. This subtle intermediality is defined through examining Kahn's and Maki's success in developing meaning, as opposed to the typical thrust of architectural critique, which usually concerns itself with form and function.