Coastal Panel Won’t Block Salk Addition
The California Coastal Commission on Thursday turned down an appeal to halt a proposed addition to the Salk Institute of Biological Sciences in La Jolla, the internationally acclaimed building by the late architect Louis Kahn.
In a 9-0 vote, with San Diego Commissioner David Malcolm absent, the commission held that its responsibility to protect the coastline does not extend to the design of the Salk building.
The addition was designed by architects Jack MacAllister and David Rinehart, former Kahn associates who worked on the original buildings.
Opponents of the $19.2-million, 113,000-square-foot addition, which would be built 120 feet east of Kahn’s original, filed their appeal with the commission in July after the project was approved by the San Diego Planning Commission and City Council. They believe the addition will damage views of, and access to, Kahn’s original.
Kahn’s daughter, Sue Anne Kahn, and one of his former associates, Anne Griswold Tyng, who spearheaded the appeal, both attended the hearing in Marina del Rey.
“My feeling remains that the most important and final appeal is to Jonas Salk himself,” Kahn said, referring to the institute’s founder. “I believe there is a groundswell of profound concern and dissent in the architectural community.”
Kahn said such internationally known architects as Robert Venturi, Frank Gehry, Richard Meier and landscape architect Lawrence Halprin oppose the addition. Halprin and Meier plan to make personal appeals to Salk to halt the addition, she added.
Kahn also didn’t rule out legal action against the city of San Diego or the state, but said she had not yet looked into such alternatives.
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