Louis Isadore Kahn was an American architect, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. While continuing his private practice, he served as a design critic and professor of architecture at Yale School of Architecture from 1947 to 1957. From 1957 until his death, he was a professor of architecture at the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. Influenced by ancient ruins, Kahn's style tends to the monumental and monolithic; his heavy buildings do not hide their weight, their materials, or the way they are assembled. Louis Kahn's works are considered as monumental beyond modernism.His personal life was as complex as his architectural vision. Kahn had relationships with three significant women: his wife, Esther Kahn; architect Anne Tyng, with whom he had a daughter; and landscape architect Harriet Pattison, with whom he also had a son. These relationships were marked by secrecy and emotional turbulence, reflecting the contrasts in Kahn's life.
