Louis Kahn: Listen to the Bricks New books on the architect’s life and career put the personal and the professional into a revealing dialogue. By Alex Beam Dec. 31, 2020 11:42 am ET Louis Kahn (1901-1974) was indisputably one of the greatest architects of the 20th century. When Kahn showed Philip Johnson, the founder of the Museum of Modern Art’s architecture and design department, the drawings for his breakthrough Richards Medical Research Laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania, Johnson responded: “When this building is done you’ll be the most prominent architect in the country and we’ll give it a show at the Museum.”