The Salk Institute

the long version

"When Jonas Salk founded his eponymous research center for biological studies in 1960, he envisioned a humanist, nearly monastic community of scientists devoted to the prevention and cure of disease. In architect Louis I. Kahn, Salk found a kindred spirit, and together the two created one of the great masterpieces of modern architecture - in Salk's words, "a work of art to serve the work of science.""--BOOK JACKET. "Charged by Salk to "invite Picasso to the laboratory," Kahn responded with a series of austere, spiritual spaces for the complex, which was set on a coastal site in the San Diego, California suburb of La Jolla. Kahn's design integrated commodious laboratory and study spaces while offering lush gardens for reflection and the now-famous courtyard with its transcendent perspective of the Pacific Ocean. Interlocking volumes unfold time and space throughout Kahn's bravura orchestration of concrete construction."--BOOK JACKET. "In this volume, acclaimed architectural photographer Ezra Stoller, whose images of the Salk Institute have become iconic themselves, captures the timeless grandeur of this unique monument to scientific understanding and artistic achievement."--BOOK JACKET.