Louis Isadore Kahn was born on February 20, 1901 or 1902 in Parnu, Eston. His parents were Bertha Mendelson and Leid Schmuilowsky. His original name was Leiser-Itze Schmuilowsky, which was changed by his father in 1912. His family was Jewish and they moved to the United States in 1905. He was raised in Philadelphia and became a naturalized citizen on May 15, 1914.
The Oscar nominated documentary My Architect tells us a lot about his early life. When Louis was three years old he was amazed by the flames from the coal being burned and this lead him to place some coals in his apron, some parts of his body caught on fire because of this incident, and ever since that he had a scars on his face and hands. When Louis was younger he was very anti-social because the other children would make fun of him and call him names like “scar face”. So he spent most of his time alone. Louis’s family was very poor, but he was very talented in music and art and because of his talent he was able to obtain money to help his family out. He would burn sticks in the back of his house in order to draw because his family was too poor to afford pencils. Louis also played the piano for silent movies and made money off of that as well. Khan first study architecture at Central High School in Philadelphia. In high school he was a classmate of Norman N. Rice, who was also a famous architect and a life long friend of Louis. When Louis went to high school he had a teacher whom he admired very much, that teacher put him in an architecture class and ever since that, he realized he wanted to pursue a career in architecture. After he graduated high school Khan worked for office of City Architect as a senior draftsman.
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