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At the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et His early work Kahn showed his preference for the geometric patterns of PersianĪnd Moorish motifs. There was, however, one European “novelty” which did inspire Kahn: art deco. with little artificial aid from either European Instead “freedom of expression, independence of thought, emancipation from theįetters of the past. Twentieth Century, he declared, “copying. In the ancient world, Kahn wrote, “men wereĭesigning, not copying problems were solved.” For the skyscrapers of the Kahn had other ideas about skyscraper ornamentation. Pediments, friezes, tripods, gladiators, urns and volutes.” The entire history of Roman art in well-chosen specimens. Of the “wedding-cake” Municipal Building in lower Manhattan), which “displayed Guy Francon’s reputation, we recall, had been madeīy the Frink National Bank Building (the fictional counterpart, more or less, Note the vertical dynamism of the first building, including fins on the top levels. Two Kahn buildings on Broadway between West 38th and West 37th Streets (both completed 1931). More importantly, Kahn was an architect of integrity In the postwar boom, up to his retirement at age 81. But Kahn was actively involved inĬreating all the buildings of his firm, and would be especially prolific again Nazi Germany - and he socialized as necessary with the garment industry real estateĭevelopers who were his potential clients. True, he was quite willing to delegate various design aspects of hisīuildings to his talented protégés - many from abroad, including refugees from Kahn, by contrast was very much a hands-onĪrchitect. To his firm, and on his way to a comfortable retirement.
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Kahn’s office employed a staff of over 120.īut much, if not all, of the similarity between Elyįountainhead opens in 1922, Guy Francon, at age 51, “han’t designed aĭog house in eight years.” He was now a debonair socializer, attracting clients At his height in the late Twenties - this wasīefore the Great Depression, which affected all architects, real and fictional By the early 1930s, KahnĪnd his partners had already built two dozen skyscrapers in New York, some Were professionally and financially quite successful.
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Neither had the genius nor daring of a Wright or a Roark. The real-life and the fictional architects were both trained at the Beaux-Arts Kahn and Francon did indeed have elements in common. And he had that manner - very elegant and But his career was strictlyĭominated by Francon methods. He was abler thanįrancon, and he was modern - within careful limits. He was so much the socially acceptable architect. Rand would later say of Kahn: “As a type, he was Guyįrancon. WhenĪpprised of Rand’s project, he welcomed her to his office as unsalariedĪssistant for a half year in 1937 and served as her mentor on the architecturalĮly Jacques Kahn (center) at work in the 1950s Towards the then-unknown novelist Ayn Rand.Įly Jacques Kahn (1884-1972) was different. Worse still, Frank Lloyd Wright was stand-offish Skyscraper,” and real-life counterpart of Henry Cameron), Wright was never keen And, protégé though he was of Louis Sullivan (the “Father of the The mid-westerner had a distinctly anti-urban and, especially anti-New Yorkīias. Published notebooks and correspondence.) But there were problems with Wright.
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Rand was enthralled by the works of Frank LloydĪlready obvious enough back then, we see it over and over in her posthumously In helping Ayn Rand write her breakout novel. Undiscovered.” But literally millions of New Yorkers pass by his dozens ofīuildings every single day with no inkling of who he was, let alone his role Not among the “majority of men” to whom Ely Jacques Kahn is “unknown,
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I am - as a professor at NYU’s School of ContinuingĪnd Professional Studies who has the great pleasure of teaching the course “ The Fountainhead in New York City”. And so it was that novelist Rand gladlyĪccepted the generosity of architect Ely Jacques Kahn. But generosity andīenevolence are a different matter. Of things, certainly not if it involves self-sacrifice. So reads Ayn Rand’s dedication in The Fountainhead.Īltruism is not a virtue in the Objectivist scheme And to the architects who gave me their generous assistance in Profession of architecture and its heroes who have given us some of the highestĮxpressions of man’s genius, yet have remained unknown, undiscovered by the “I offer my profound gratitude to the great