Monumentality and dominance in Louis Kahn’s architecture

Dominance in architecture is defined as the superiority and predominance of an element or group of elements over the rest in the composition, which causes its attractiveness to the recipient/viewer. The dominant elements often include the basic idea of the architectural work and carry a set of design characteristics. The research assumes that there is a fundamental causal relationship between the monumentality of the buildings and the presence of the design characteristics that causes dominance. Thus, the aim was to verify the presence of these characteristics in the projects of the architect (Louis khan), and to find out the reasons of dominance that most obvious and which were the reasons of the monumentality of his works. The research adopted a descriptive approach by using a questionnaire for architects. The results showed the presence of dominance on both total and partial levels of design in his projects due to the types of basic shapes, because of their constant presence in the mind and their large size. At the spatial level, the dominance caused by the complete repetition of the elements and their important functions.