In December 2021, a demolition crew arrived at a site near Philadelphia’s western limits for the routine job of tearing down an aging, midcentury structure. Apart from a polished aluminum sign reading Samuel Radbill Building, Philadelphia Psychiatric Center, few took notice over the following weeks as one of Louis I. Kahn’s seminal works of architecture fell to the ground—a victim of its own obsolescence and decades of neglect. The Radbill Building, a three-story psychiatric hospital completed in 1953, was one of a handful of extant buildings by Kahn in the city he called home, and one of just a dozen or so cultural and institutional buildings that Kahn realized in the United States.
That the loss of such a significant building could go unreported is surprising. Its location likely played a role, as did its physical condition: even though Radbill remained in use until last year, it had fallen into severe disrepair. Many of the building’s steel casement windows no longer closed, blue marble panels at the entrance were cracked, and sections of the slate facade had been replaced with precast concrete. A few key elements were removed long ago, notably a sculptural entry canopy designed by Anne Griswold Tyng.
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