FORT WORTH, TX—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 50th Anniversary year.
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.
SUPPORT
The Kimbell is supported in part by Arts Fort Worth, the Texas Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Promotional support is provided by American Airlines, NBC5 and PaperCity.
VISITOR INFORMATION
Admission to the museum’s permanent collection is always free. Special exhibition admission is $18 for adults; $16 for seniors, K–12 educators, students and military personnel; $14 for ages 6–11; free for children under 6; and $3 for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients. Admission is half-price all day on Tuesdays and after 5 p.m. on Fridays.
The Kimbell Art Museum is open Tuesdays through Thursdays and Saturdays, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Fridays, noon–8 p.m.; Sundays, noon–5 p.m.; closed Mondays, New Year’s Day, July 4, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. For general information, call 817-332-8451.
ABOUT THE KIMBELL ART MUSEUM
The Kimbell Art Museum, owned and operated by the Kimbell Art Foundation, is internationally renowned for both its collections and its architecture. The Kimbell’s collections range in period from antiquity to the 20th century and include European masterpieces by artists such as Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Bernini, Velázquez, Vigée Le Brun, Monet, Cézanne, Picasso and Matisse; important collections of Egyptian and classical antiquities; and the art of Asia, Africa and the Ancient Americas.
The museum’s 1972 building, designed by the American architect Louis I. Kahn, is widely regarded as one of the outstanding architectural achievements of the modern era. A second building, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, opened in 2013 and now provides space for special exhibitions, dedicated classrooms and a 289-seat auditorium with excellent acoustics for music. For more information, visit kimbellart.org.