Includes bibliographical references and index.

Ch. One. The discovery of exposed concrete -- Monumentality, "away from practice" -- Vacuum Formed Method for Israel -- Canopy and sunshades of the Samuel Radbill Building -- "Exposed finished concrete" and "democratic taste" -- Yale Art Gallery: beyond the Flexible Ceiling -- The Tetrahedron Floor System -- From the model to the definitive project: tetrahedral geometry and construction in conflict -- The construction of the floor system prototype -- The first American construction in beton brut -- Ch. Two. Hollow stones and hollow columns -- Tetrahedral Space Frame for the City Hall Building -- Theoretical principles for concrete: hollow stones -- Joints of form work versus monolith, or "how it is built" -- "Grow out" and "joints" in the towers of the Mill Creek Redevelopment Area -- Untouchable and scarface: visual illusion of values -- "Column joints" or "column capitals," "column clusters" and "hollow columns" -- The Adath Jeshurun Synagogue and the metaphorical values of structure -- "Square space idea" and masonry order -- Vierendeel beams with floor system of the AFL Medical Services Building -- The blocks for the Bath House, or the art of American concrete -- The mural of blocks: the transparency of the "rough" -- New Brutalism at New Haven? -- Ch. Three. Precast and poured in place -- The Washington University Library, or the "implicit shape" -- "Tower of triangular concrete frames" for the Universal Atlas Cement Company -- Metaphorical concrete for the pavilions of the Day Camp -- Projects for the Jewish Community Building: the shadow of concrete -- Jacobean Style in concrete and brick: the Richards Medical Research Laboratories -- Towards the hollow floor structure with columns -- Precast and prestressed concrete -- Poured in place concrete: the meanings of smooth and lined surfaces -- Blocks in concrete and terrazzo -- New dilemmas on concrete: precast or poured in place? -- Color trials -- Development of construction systems -- Prefabricated concrete by the Atlantic Prestressed Concrete Company -- Crevices, cracks and repairs of the surfaces of the Richards Medical Research Laboratories -- Ch. Four. Archaic concrete pattern -- Precast stones for the Jewish Community Building -- The brick cladding of the project for the Tribune Review Building -- Metamorphosis of clay into concrete -- The prefabricated beams of the Formigli Corporation -- The concrete bricks and blocks of the Greensburg Concrete Block Company -- The canopy, a tribute to Le Corbusier -- "Concrete in lieu of limestone": United State Consulate Buildings, Luanda -- Concrete blocks and plaster finish: the Esherick House -- Ch. Five. Forms of prefabricated concrete -- Formwork for the poured in place concrete of the Biology Building -- Precast concrete of the Formigli Corporation -- The fiberglass molds of George Kreier Jr. for the Mill Creek Apartments II -- Scholastic exercises on tetrahedra prefabricated in post-tensioned concrete -- Ch. Six. First unitarian church and school, or the end of beton brut -- The choice of materials -- Metaphorical patterns for formwork and blocks -- Worksite chronicles: experiments in formwork -- Hanging tapestries: the "idea of the spectrum."

Through sheer determination and courage, Kahn has researched the nature of concrete in the form of precast, cast in place or blocks. Each of his renowned works in exposed concrete, such as the Yale Art Gallery, the Richards Laboratories, the Bath House, the Salk Institute, the National Assembly, the Kimbell Museum, the Exeter Library and the Yale Center for British Art, is itself an important chapter in the history of architecture for the exploration into concrete's formal expression, beyond the lessons of Le Corbusier. Kahn's obsession with concrete's fabrication processes, the formwork and the mix-design is systematically examined in two volumes. They illustrate Kahn's vision using documents that have never been revealed in other essays, drawing heavily from original sketches, plans, specifications, worksite photographs, and correspondences with collaborators, engineers, technicians and contractors. The first volume Exposed Concrete and Hollow Stones focuses on the first ten-year period of Kahn's research on concrete. Moving through the many construction systems experienced by Kahn, from the discovery of exposed concrete in the form of b�eton brut at the Yale Art Gallery, to the precast and poured-in-place techniques, to the values of joint, growth and ornament, the work culminates in the reconstruction of the artistic and technical characteristics of two great worksite, the Richards Laboratories and the First Unitarian Church and School. The second volume, Towards the Zero Degree of Concrete, covers the following fourteen years and leads the reader along Kahn's path to the true 'nature of concrete', focusing on his main techniques and discoveries such as the 'liquid stone' of the Salk Institute, the 'smooth finish' at Bryn Mawr and the concept of 'monolithic' at the Yale Center for British Art.