January 9, 2012
Tyng in Trenton.
Anne Tyng’s ideas about geometry helped shape Louis Kahn’s iconic Trenton Bath House.
I was reading the obits for architect Anne Tyng, who just died at the age of 91. She was a theorist who is best known for having worked closely with the architect Louis Kahn, the father of her daughter, Alexandra.
I read this paragraph in the New York Times obit:
It me think about my visit to the newly restored Trenton Bath House in the summer of 2010, how moved I was by the elemental geometry of the place, and especially by the way the sunlight poured through the square hole in the center of each simple structure’s wooden roof. The design was clearly the work of a geometrical strategist, but I’d assumed that strategist was Kahn.
Maybe it was, but he had help. Inga Saffron framed it this way in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Most architecture is collaborative in nature and it’s rare that underlings are properly credited for their contributions. But the story of Anne Tyng, her relationship with Kahn, and her unacknowledged influence on his work is particularly poignant. I’m sorry I had to wait until her death to read it.