Richard Saul Wurman: “There’s a Louis Kahn Cult, and I’m a Member!”
Louis I. Kahn's 1956 study for center city Philadelphia, ink on tracing paper. Image Courtesy of Designers & BooksThis article was originally published on Common Edge.
Dan Klyn, who teaches information architecture at the University of Michigan, is currently researching and writing a biography entitled Richard Saul Wurman’s 5 Lives. It’s an apt title, since the intellectually peripatetic Wurman has had several career incarnations: architect, author, publisher, designer, painter, sculptor, impresario (he created and thoroughly curated the early TED talks). “In a sense, I’m an amateur, a dilettante, I don’t do anything particularly well, but I see patterns between things,” he said to me in a recent interview, although his modesty here seems somewhat false: Wurman is a member of the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame; an AIA Fellow; has written, designed, and published more than 100 books; won a lifetime achievement award from the Cooper Hewitt; and is the recipient of the AIGA Gold Medal.
