Louis I. Kahn was born in Estonia and raised in Philadelphia. He was trained in architecture in the Beaux-Arts tradition at the University of Pennsylvania under Paul Philippe Cret. As a mature architect, Kahn was distinguished from his contemporaries (in a period dominated by the International Style) by his unique personal philosophy of architecture and a style marked by a profound sense of history and pure geometry in design and the texture of materials in construction. His legacy is as much in his teaching and his unbuilt designs as in his major built works. He lectured and wrote on architecture beginning in the 1930s. He taught at Yale University (1947-1955) and was Cret Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania from 1956 until his death (Louis I. Kahn Collection, University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission).

William S. Huff was born on June 8, 1927, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After serving in the Navy during World War II, Huff attended Yale University where he received his undergraduate degrees (1949, 1952) and his master's degree (1972).

Huff first became aware of Louis I. Kahn in 1947 when he was a student at Yale, and Kahn was a visiting critic. In 1956 Huff decided that he wanted to either work for Kahn or study in Europe. When Kahn did not have an opening, Huff secured a Fulbright and went to Ulm, Germany to study at the Hochschule für Gestaltung. Huff began working in Kahn's office in Philadelphia in 1958. Between 1958 and 1962, Huff was in charge of the project to construct the Tribune Review Publishing Company building in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Huff left Kahn's office in 1962. Huff discussed Kahn's association with Yale in his article, "Kahn and Yale" ( Journal of architectural education: JAE, v.35, no.3 (Spring 1982), pp. 22-31. See also, Huff's "Louis Kahn: sorted recollections and lapses in familiarities," Little journal, v.5, no.1 (Sept. 1981)