And they are workshops where intellectual space and ethical light should be abundant, which is why the reopened Kahn building feels so right.

There were little more than a dozen major Kahn buildings actually erected, as well as a handful of smaller ones.

And of the important Kahn buildings, only three were museums, surely the most intensely examined building type of our time.

It would be hard for anybody to try to design a new addition to a Kahn building in the style of the original.

The 50-year-old Kahn building at Yale has been closed since June.

The Kahn building is to reopen in spring 2006, and restoration of the Swartwout building is to begin in 2008.

The Kahn building, the first Modernist design on the Yale campus, is made of brick, concrete, glass and steel.

To destroy the garden setting in order to crowd the Kahn building between pseudo-Kahn wings will spoil both building and site.

Moreover, this is not the first time that architects have spoken out against a proposed addition to a Kahn building.

Project: Restoration of Kahn building.