Kimbell to Host Symposium on Architect and Engineer

The Kimbell Art Museum announced today a symposium titled Komendant and Kahn: Engineer and Architect at the Kimbell Art Museum on Saturday, September 9, 2023, at 10 am.

Expert engineers, architects, and art historians will discuss the working relationship of structural engineer August Komendant, a pioneer of precast, prestressed, thin-shell concrete, and Louis I. Kahn, creator of modernist architecture with monumental forms and poetic light. Their dynamic but sometimes contentious collaboration produced some of the most innovative and acclaimed buildings of the twentieth century, including the Salk Institute and the Kimbell Art Museum. This panel discussion about the two brilliant Estonian-born colleagues will mark the close of the Kimbell’s 50^th Anniversary year.

The Kimbell Art Museum at Dusk
Carol M. Highsmith (1946-)

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

• Welcome – Eric M. Lee, director, Kimbell Art Museum
• Moderator and Panelist – Guy Nordenson, professor, structural engineering and architecture, School of Architecture, Princeton University, New Jersey; partner, Guy Nordenson and Associates, New York
• Panelist – Thomas Taylor, design director, Datum Engineers, Dallas
• Engineering Modern Architecture: Highlights of August Komendant’s Career – Carl-Dag Lige, junior researcher, Faculty of Architecture, Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, Estonia
• Komendant and Kahn: Collaborative Design Innovation with Materials and Geometry – Caitlin Mueller, associate professor, department of civil and environmental engineering; associate professor, department of architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston
• Kimbell in Context: Technology and Collaboration in Concrete Modernism – Tyler Sprague, associate professor, department of architecture; adjunct professor, department of civil and environmental engineering, University of Washington, Seattle
• Kahn and Komendant: Design in Two-Point Perspective – Shantel Blakely, assistant professor, School of Architecture, Rice University, Houston

Admission is free and no reservations are required, but seating is limited. The discussion will take place in the Pavilion Auditorium and be simulcast in the Kahn Auditorium.