Salk Institute Case Study: Plan, Section and the Courtyard (Louis Kahn)

The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, is a research laboratory designed by Louis I. Kahn for Jonas Salk and built from 1962 to 1965, with its travertine plaza finished in 1967. Three ideas carry it: column-free labs with a full service floor above each one, private studies in towers along the court, and one treeless plaza open to the Pacific. Below: brief, site, plan, section, materials, problems and lessons for India.

The brief: Jonas Salk and Louis Kahn

Salk, developer of the first successful polio vaccine, wanted biologists working together and thinking about what their discoveries meant for people. According to the Salk Institute's history page, he asked Kahn to "create a facility worthy of a visit by Picasso".

The Conservation Management Plan (CMP) for the site (2016) sets out the history:

• Salk visited Kahn in Philadelphia in December 1959 and toured the Richards Medical Research Laboratories, which Kahn was finishing. Their size, 100,000 sq ft (about 9,300 m²) for about ten research groups, was roughly what Salk needed.
• There was no formal written programme; the brief grew through conversation with a client who had designed his own labs in Pittsburgh.
• His firmest requirement was open, flexible, unobstructed laboratory space (Getty report).

Site and context: a mesa above the Pacific

In June 1960 San Diego voters gave Salk 27 acres of city land on a La Jolla mesa beside the planned University of California, San Diego. Kahn saw that the terraces around a deep canyon could take buildings while much of the bluff stayed unbuildable (CMP). Two facts shaped the design:

• A coastal height limit. Regional planning policy capped the height of coastal buildings, which is why one laboratory floor sits below the plaza.
• The ocean to the west. The Getty Conservation Institute's teak report puts the plaza about 363 ft (110 m) above sea level and about 2,250 ft (690 m) from the shore, with both buildings aligned to true north, so the plaza runs east to west, towards the sea.

Salk Institute design concept: three parts, one built

Kahn's first model, shown to the city in March 1960, had a Meeting House by the ocean, the Laboratory, a Recreation Center and housing, the Living Place. Recreation later merged into the Meeting House, giving three parts. Only the laboratories were built; the other two were dropped from Kahn's commission in August 1963 for lack of money (CMP).

The labs went through three designs. The change from the second to the third is the lesson:

• Second design, 1960 to early 1962: four two-storey laboratory blocks in pairs around two narrow garden courts. R. McCarter, in Concrete International (December 2009), describes post-tensioned folded-plate roofs spanning 50 to 100 ft.
• The client's objection: in March 1962 Salk, worried that two courts would split his scientists and that the labs were not flexible enough, told Kahn to "start over" (CMP, quoting Thomas Leslie).
• Third design, from May 1962: two laboratory buildings either side of one court, now about twice as wide. Kahn wrote that "One garden is greater than two" and admitted, "I felt loss of the folded plate construction" (CMP, quoting Kahn's Complete Works).

Cost mattered too: lab area fell from 139,000 to 93,600 sq ft (about 12,900 to 8,700 m²), and the number of studies from forty to thirty-six, while fundraising for the $15 million building struggled (CMP).

Salk Institute plan: served and servant spaces

Kahn separated "served" spaces, where people work, from "servant" spaces for stairs, ducts and pipes. The Getty report reads the hierarchy from the outside in:

1. Service cores on the outer edge: stairs, lifts, toilets.
2. Laboratories: open, glass-walled floors, each under a full-height service floor.
3. Study towers on the plaza side, across light wells, reached by bridges and stairs.
4. The plaza in the middle.

The two buildings mirror each other, each with a west office wing facing the ocean and a mechanical wing at the east end feeding the service floors. The 36 studies, for senior scientists, have teak windows and white oak interiors: Kahn's "architecture of the oak table and the rug" (Getty report).

Kahn's own plans, including the 1963 middle-level plan, are in the Louis I. Kahn Collection (see Visiting below).

Salk Institute section: interstitial floors and Vierendeel trusses

For column-free labs, Komendant used concrete Vierendeel trusses, open-web frames with rectangular openings instead of diagonals, 9 ft (2.7 m) deep. From the CMP:

• The trusses span 62 ft (18.9 m) between columns set at 20 ft (6.1 m) centres along the side walls.
• The truss depth became a service floor above each lab. Pipes, ducts and cables pass through the openings, the largest in the middle.
• Floor to floor is 20 ft (6.1 m): 11 ft (3.4 m) clear for the lab and 9 ft (2.7 m) for the service floor.
• Each building has three lab floors, one below grade for the height limit. The building rose only 7 ft 6 in (2.3 m) over the earlier scheme, "rather than doubling the number of floors from three to six, as it is sometimes described".

Sources disagree on the span: McCarter gives 60 ft, the CMP 62 ft, and the Institute's virtual tour about 65 ft. Cite whichever you use.

Each study tower stacks an open arcade, a study floor, an open portico and a second study floor. The court and porticos line up with the middle and upper labs, so a scientist crosses a bridge from bench to study (CMP).

The Salk Institute courtyard and water channel

Kahn was long undecided about the court; even the 1965 as-built drawings show lawn and trees. He invited Luis Barragán, who visited in February 1966. Accounts of his advice differ: the CMP records "There should be no garden, it should be a plaza", while the Institute's architecture guide quotes him promising "a façade to the sky".

The plaza, paid for by trustee Theodore Gildred Sr., was completed in 1967. A narrow channel in the travertine runs from a fountain to a pool at the west end; the sun sets along its axis at the equinoxes, and the water is recirculated from a rainwater cistern (Salk guide).

Salk Institute materials: concrete, teak and travertine

The palette is small and left as made: concrete, teak, lead, glass, weathering steel and stainless steel (Getty report).

• Concrete. Pozzolan blended cement (12 percent pozzolan) with lightweight pumice aggregate, cast in 3/4 in (19 mm) plastic-coated plywood with bevelled edges, so joints show as fine fins. Exterior tie holes were plugged with lead. Kahn's office drew 128 formwork drawings, sixteen sample panels were poured for review in January 1963, and materials came from the same sources throughout for even colour (CMP).
• Teak. 203 window walls in the studies and offices, teak outside, prefabricated in a cabinetmaker's shop and installed in 1965. Redwood was specified until 1962, and Kahn refused cheaper woods at tender (Getty report).
• Travertine. The plaza is Italian travertine, laid unfilled and unsealed (Salk virtual tour), in bands parallel to the water channel.

Light, climate and services

La Jolla's marine climate is mild but hard on materials: the Getty report records 148 days of fog a year at San Diego airport and winds mostly from the west, and the CMP notes salt air corroding galvanised nails.

• Daylight. Lab walls are glass on all four sides, and light wells bring daylight to the lowest lab, about 20 ft (6.1 m) below grade (CMP; Salk virtual tour).
• Control in the studies. Sliding sashes, louvres and shutters let each scientist set light and air. Kahn wanted to provide for "both the photophilic and the photophobic individual" (CMP).
• Services. All run in the service floors. Systems were renewed after a 1993 to 1998 survey; the Institute finished a $28 million infrastructure programme in 2012 and now has 2,352 solar panels on its roofs (Getty report; Salk guide).

Reception: critics, scientists and repairs

• Money ran out. By July 1965 $15 million had been spent and construction stopped. The north building was occupied in 1966; the south labs stood empty until 1997 (CMP).
• Leaks and fungus. A weather strip cut to save money and a sealant that would not bond to oily teak let water in: a November 1965 storm left standing water under the floors, by December 1966 all windows were reported leaking, and fungus appeared within eighteen months (Getty report).
• The teak repair. From 2013 to 2017 the Getty Conservation Institute and the Salk restored the window walls ($9.8 million, per the Salk guide). The Salk's June 2017 announcement says over two-thirds of the original teak was reused.
• The East Building fight. When an addition in the eucalyptus grove was proposed in 1991, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown called the Salk "the most significant architectural composition of our century", and Herbert Muschamp of the New York Times wrote that it "would ruin the most sublime landscape ever created by an American architect" (both quoted in the CMP). It moved further east and opened in 1995; the CMP still calls it intrusive.
• Users. In Metropolis (2007), Christopher Hawthorne quotes cell biologist Tony Hunter: "This has been a spectacularly successful building, and you see more and more labs copying the open plan." Hunter also told him that about half the people he knew with studies did not use them.

What designers in India can take from the Salk Institute

These are our reading, not claims from the sources.

1. Give services a zone people can walk into. Indian hospitals, labs and colleges change equipment many times. A full service floor is expensive, but the idea scales down: an accessible ceiling void or a perimeter service corridor means a new gas line does not mean breaking a slab over a working ward.
2. Exposed concrete is decided on drawings and on site. On an Indian site, ask for a shuttering layout with the tie pattern drawn, a full-size mock-up panel approved before casting, and one fixed source for cement and sand. Our guide to building materials by Indian climate covers the wider choices.
3. Detail timber for salt air and driving rain. In Mumbai, Chennai, Kochi or Goa, draw the drip, the flashing and a drainage path rather than trusting sealant, and plan cleaning access. Our waterproofing guide by climate goes further.
4. Bring light down before building up. Where height rules push rooms below ground, sunken courts like the Salk's light wells can turn a basement into a usable room. Kahn was working on the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad at the same time; it was commissioned in 1962 (CMP).

If you are documenting the Salk for a studio, our case study method guide gives a sheet layout, and laboratories and research institutes appear in our B.Arch thesis topics by typology. Kahn's National Assembly of Bangladesh gets its own case study in this series.

Visiting the Salk Institute and seeing the drawings

Per the Visiting Salk page, public tours run Wednesday to Friday at 10:00 and 11:30, take about an hour and cost $25 per person at the time of writing, booked online; private group tours need ten business days' notice. The campus is closed on weekends and holidays, with no visitor parking on site. The Institute's virtual architecture tour is a free way to see the labs and service floors.

Kahn's drawings belong to the Louis I. Kahn Collection at the Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania, bought by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1976 and on permanent loan to Penn. The Getty report and the CMP reproduce several plans and sections.

See how Indian studios handle courts, concrete and light: browse projects by MOA members.

FAQ

When was the Salk Institute built?

Construction started in June 1962. The laboratory complex was completed in 1965 and the plaza in 1967. The north building was occupied in early 1966, and the south laboratories were fitted out only in 1997.

Who designed the Salk Institute?

Louis I. Kahn, for Jonas Salk. August Komendant was the structural engineer and Fred Dubin the building systems engineer. Luis Barragán advised Kahn to make the court a plaza without trees.

What materials were used in the Salk Institute?

Poured-in-place pozzolanic concrete with lead-plugged tie holes, teak window walls with oak interiors in the studies and offices, Italian travertine on the plaza, glass and stainless steel on the laboratories, and lead.

How many floors does the Salk Institute have?

Each laboratory building has three lab floors, each with a full-height service floor above it, so six levels in all. The lowest lab and its service floor are below the plaza. The study towers have two study floors with open arcades and porticos.

Where is the Salk Institute located?

At 10010 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, in San Diego, California, on a mesa above the Pacific Ocean next to the University of California, San Diego.

Sources

• Salk Institute: History of Salk (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Salk Institute: Explore Salk architecture guide (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Salk Institute: Virtual Architecture Tour (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Salk Institute: Visiting Salk (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Salk Institute: Getty Conservation Institute and Salk Institute announce completion of major conservation efforts, 29 June 2017 (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inskip and Gee Architects and Liz Sargent HLA, for the Getty Foundation's Keeping It Modern programme: Conservation Management Plan, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, October 2016, redacted May 2017, pages 9 to 61, 96 to 111, 173 to 178 and 299 (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Getty Conservation Institute, Sara Lardinois: Salk Institute for Biological Studies Conservation Project: Teak Window Wall Assemblies, Phase 1 report, 2017, chapters 2 and 3 (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• American Concrete Institute, R. McCarter: Louis I. Kahn and the Nature of Concrete, Concrete International 31(12), December 2009, abstract (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Metropolis, Christopher Hawthorne: The Science Hall of Fame, 1 February 2007 (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania: Kahn, Louis I. (accessed 3 Nov 2026)