2005-09-18 - Salk Institute and Neurosciences Institute

In the fall of 2005 I went down to La Jolla with my good friends Shawn and Erin Gehle. Themselves transplants to Southern California arriving not long after I did, we were eager to visit these two landmarks of modern architecture that we'd known only from books and lectures. The Salk Institute was designed by Louis Kahn, with Luis Barragán consulting on the plaza. The Neurosciences Institute was designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien.

Each building aims to be a monastery of science, a place of focus and exploration, and also a community of individuals united in their purpose. The material palette of both buildings is similar - concrete, stone and wood, but the treatment and use is varied. Overall, the Salk Institute is more formal, sitting above the bluff, with its symmetrical wings flanking the central court facing the ocean. The Neurosciences Institute is asymmetrical, built into the hill and revels in small details like fossils in the stone and exuberant protuberances in the cast concrete, casting shadows like ancient sundials. The design of NSI clearly learned lessons from the Salk, but its designers were confident to make their own statement about what a science community should be. 

Camera: Unknown Sony
Medium: Digital