Anne Tyng

Anne Griswold Tyng was an architect and professor. She is best known for having collaborated for 29 years with Louis Kahn at his practice in Philadelphia. She served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania for 27 years, teaching classes in urban morphology. She was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and an academician of the National Academy of Design. She is the first woman licensed as an architect by the state of Pennsylvania.
Born: July 14, 1920, Lushan, Jiangxi, China
Died: December 27, 2011 (aged 91), Greenbrae, California, U.S.
Alma mater: Radcliffe College, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania
Occupation: Architect
Practice: Stonorov and Kahn
Projects: City Tower,
Trenton Bathhouse,
Salk Institute for Biological Studies,
Yale Art Gallery
Design philosophy:
Anne Tyng brought a sense of formal geometric principles to her own designs and to her work with Louis Kahn. She created spaces where the occupant could experience enveloping geometric forms. She rejected flat vertical walls for more experimental shapes inspired by Platonic solids.
Tyng was a theorist known for her passion for mathematics and her pioneering work in space frame architecture, in which interlocking geometric patterns are used to create light-filled spaces. She was particularly interested in platonic solids and in Jungian thought.
Among the first group of women admitted to the GSD, the Bauhaus-inspired training she received at Harvard equipped her with a "fervour for the 'box' [and] a bare-boned dedication to low-cost housing and the purer forms of the international style.“
Space Frame Architecture & Platonic Solids:
Tyng was known for her pioneering work in space frame architecture and her passion for mathematics, particularly Platonic solids.
Space frame architecture uses interlocking struts in a geometric pattern to support interior areas with few visible supports. This type of construction creates the feeling of inhabiting geometry.
The five Platonic solids are the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron, which are solid, three-dimensional shapes with equal sides and angles. They are also all convex shapes and every face is a regular polygon of the same size and shape (for example, each face of the cube is a square).
These shapes underpin Tyng’s designs and how she conceptualized space. Her work envelopes the inhabitant, creating a feeling of living in geometric space.
Awards and recognitions:
Alongside her transformative work, Tyng has been a recipient of many architecture awards and achievements, including:
First woman licensed as an architect in the state of Pennsylvania
Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, 1975
Academician of the National Academy of Design, 1975
Selected by the United States to participate in the First International Congress of Women Architects, 1976
Notable works:
Yale University Art Gallery
The Trenton Bath House
Wharton Esherick Museum
Salk Institute for biological studies
Anne Tyng’s former residence
Four-Poster House
Tyng Toy
Platonic Solid
Urban Hierarchy
City Tower
Bryn Mawr Erdman Hall
Weiss House
Mill Creek Redevelopment Plan
Civic Centre project, Philadelphia
Redevelopment plan for Philadelphia
Quotes:
" [For me, architecture] has become a passionate search for essences of form and space-- number, shape, proportion, scale-- a search for ways to define space by thresholds of structure, natural laws, human identity and meaning."