Louis I Kahn's lecture of 12 February 1969 at ETH Zurich's School of Architecture, revealing his spiritual understanding of architecture and showing his remarkable creative thinking. The book features the complete text and the full original recording of Kahn's own voice.

Louis I. Kahn (1901-74) was one of the foremost architects in America during the twentieth century. His notable buildings include the Yale Study Center; the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California; and the Exeter Library in Exeter, New Hampshire. On February 12, 1969, Kahn gave a lecture at the School of Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich. Entitled Silence and Light, the lecture explains Kahn's spiritual understanding of architecture, which goes far deeper than simply constructing buildings. It also gives a remarkably prescient account of a belief in sustainable architecture that prefigures the twenty-first century's focus on green technology. The lecture is represented in transcripts in five different languages (German, Italian, English, French, and Spanish), as well as an audio recording of Kahn giving the lecture in English included on CD. To complement the original text, the editor has included a preface written by Kahn's close friend and fellow architect Balkrishna V. Doshi, as well as many of Kahn's own images and drawings, some of which have never been published before.

"Talking to us nearly 4o years after he [Louis I. Kahn] died, this 'lost' tape has a haunting yet comforting quality." Jan-Carlos Kucharek, Riba Journal

"[...] a CD that gives us the chance to experience the spell of the voice of the one who was perhaps the last guru of the essential truths of architecture." ArquitecturaViva 163