The art museum has become a prestige commission for contemporary architects, and for several decades reference has been made to a "museum building boom." Among these new museums, those of Louis Kahn are especially admired. This significant American architect, who ranks in this century with Frank Lloyd Wright both as a creator and as an influence, has made a special contribution to the architecture of museums and has helped create a subtle but telling change in the concept of what a late twentieth-century museum building should be.
After a brief look at the development of a tradition in...