Pushpita's Bio Analysis
The Biography of Louis I Kahn (https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1701255) has been written by David B Brownlee. It was published in print in 1999 and online in 2000. In the first paragraph we get a brief personal introduction of the architect Louis I Kahn. Author gave a brief description about his birth, his family and early education. From the first paragraph we find Kahn as an architect. Kahn served as chief of design for the exhibition buildings erected in Philadelphia for the Sesquicentennial Exposition of 1926. This biography has developed with the biological timeline of Louis I Kahn from his birth on February, 20th 1901 to his death in March 17th 1974. He became interested in the modern architecture that would soon be christened the International Style. Kahn was particularly concerned with the use of modern architecture as a tool for social change, and in collaboration with other young, unemployed architects he began to experiment with the design of public housing. He and his friends submitted several projects to the infant federal housing program, but none was funded.
This Biography gives almost all the detail of kahn’s professional life. His philosophy and ideals are very clearly established in this biography. Besides, his struggle for establishing his concepts and finally his achievements of these struggles has been visibly stated in this biography. Kahn’s enduring fame rests on his success in restoring a sense of serious, almost spiritual, purpose to modern architecture as it passed the midpoint of the twentieth century—in making it once more a difficult, idealist endeavor. By creating simplicity out of the often intractable material of the real world, and by attaching the philosophy of modernism to its historical antecedents, he enlarged the challenge and increased the means for a new generation of architects.
The second biography https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1700886 is of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. This biography was written by Franz Schulze. It was published in print in 1999 and online in 2000. Mies was a German Architect who played a vital role in establishing the International Style in architecture. This bio was written in third person. The format was similar as the format of Louis I Kahn. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe architect was born on 27 March 1886 in Aachen, Germany, the son of Michael Mies, a stonemason, and Amalie Rohe. Mies received no formal schooling in architecture. A natural gift for drawing attracted the attention of several professionals, who encouraged him to consider a career in architecture. This biography has elaborately described his life both professional and personal. It also highlighted his struggles to establish his philosophy and ideas of International Style. It somehow reflected the social and political tension prevailed in Germany during the post-world war period. By the mid-1920s the nation’s financial condition had improved in Germany, and Mies was free to work in an increasingly popular modernist idiom, his professional reputation was also growing correspondingly. In his bio, the author highlighted the two most celebrated works of his European career, the German Pavilion of the Barcelona International Exposition of 1929 (rebuilt 1983–1986) and the Tugendhat House in Brno (1928–1930). Both buildings, notable for Mies’s use of a variety of patrician marbles and glass, featured the open plan, with major walls defining rather than enclosing space. They are also remembered as settings for which Mies designed several pieces of furniture, most memorably the “Barcelona Chair” and the “Tugendhat Table,” that have come to be recognized as masterpieces of modernist furniture. Not only as a professional architect, but also as an academic persona he left his signature in the famous Bauhaus School of Architecture which was a core house of socialism in Europe. Mies was among those architects who brought socialist concepts in USA. The biography give a in depth detail in brief terms of Mies van der Rohe until his death in 1969.
The third biography is of Walter Gropius https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1700352, written by John Zukowsky. It was also published in the paper format in 1999 and online in 2000. Gropius was also a German born architect and an educator of Architecture in Bauhaus School of Architecture which became famous under his supervision. After closing down the Bauhaus School by the Nazis, Gropius left Germany and moved to England. In 1937 he accepted an offer to teach architecture at Harvard University—a move that led him to change the course of America’s architecture after World War II. Gropius was chairman of the Department of Architecture at Harvard from 1938 to 1952, a position that gave him a secure base to reestablish himself and his design ideas over a long period of time and thereby influence the course of American architectural education, and American architecture itself over those generations.
The last bio is of another famous American architect Philip Cortelyou Johnson. This bio https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1701992, has been written by Jeffrey Lieber and was published online in 2014. Philip Cortelyou Johnson, architect, was born in Cleveland, Ohio on July 08, 1906, to Homer H. Johnson, a well to-do lawyer, and Louise Pope Johnson. His family traced its roots in America back to the mid-seventeenth century. The first paragraph of the biography gave the personal detail of Philip Johnson. The biography focused on his professional and personal life, political beliefs, his ideas and ideologies as an architect, architectural historian. This biography also highlighted his interest in modern art and his contributions in modern architecture. In between the professional achievements and contributions in architecture, the author highlighted the personal belief and personality of Johnson in this biography. His financial affluence gave him the freedom to choose his life according to his own will until his death.
These biographies here that have been selected all gives a professional account of these famous architects as well as a brief personal account. But all these biographies have clearly highlighted their ideologies, personal and political beliefs and also their contribution in the world of architecture. therefore it can be said that, all these bios are simple professional bios reflecting the freedom of choice as professional architects.