AN Richards Medical Research Laboratories

Louis Kahn – University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Pennsylvania USA, 1957-1965

The Richards Medical Research Laboratories, located on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, were designed by architect Louis Kahn and are considered a turning point in his career. The building is configured as a cluster of laboratory towers with a central service tower. The brick towers on the sides contain the stairwells and air ducts, producing an effect reminiscent of the old Italian towers that Kahn had painted several years earlier.

Rather than being supported by a hidden steel structure, the building has a clearly visible and openly displayed reinforced concrete structure. Constructed from precisely cast precast concrete elements, the techniques used in its construction advanced the state of the art of reinforced concrete.

Despite its obvious shortcomings, this building helped create new directions for modern architecture with its clear expression of serviced and servant spaces and its evocation of the architecture of the past. The Richards Laboratories, along with the related Goddard Laboratories, also designed by Kahn and treated by architectural historians as the second phase of the Richards project, have been designated National Historic Landmarks.