Articles
Design Intelligence | Reflections on the Relationship Between Lou Kahn and Jonas Salk | September 30, 2016
This is the text of remarks delivered by Jonathan Salk to the Technology and Innovation Summit meeting of the Design Futures Council in 2015. His talk reflects the pre-adolescent “worm’s eye view” of the relationship he saw develop between his father, Jonas Salk, and the architect Louis Kahn as they got to know each other and began to discuss what was to become one of Kahn’s most revered buildings, the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.
Interviews
The Getty | The Salk Institute Part 1: Founding and Forming
Getty president Jim Cuno talks with artists, writers, curators, and scholars about their work in the Art + Ideas series. In this October 31, 2018 episode, Jonathan Salk and Nathaniel Kahn, sons of Jonas Salk and Louis Kahn respectively, discuss their fathers’ relationship to each other and to the Salk Institute. Listen online or download the podcast exploring the unique collaboration between a scientist and an architect. 57:19 A full transcript is available here.
Re:MADE | Salk on Salk: A New Reality
“A conversation with Jonathan Salk about his collaboration with his father, Jonas Salk. Together in the early 1980s they wrote a prescient book of ideas about life facing millennials. A newly relevant and re-made edition of their book is now available.” Listen online or download the podcast. September 30, 2017.
What It Takes by the Academy of Achievement | Jonas Salk: Vanquisher of Polio
This interview was recorded on May 16, 1991. In it, Salk talks about being the child of uneducated immigrants, and carving his own path to medical school and eventually virology — a specialty that didn't exist when he began as a researcher. He discusses the anti-semitic quotas he had to overcome, as well as the doubt and scorn of many of his peers. But he also describes the transformation and relief his polio vaccine brought to the world. Watch the full interview or read a transcript; video running time: 1:27:00. Listen to a podcast; running time: 25:00.
Jonas Salk’s Academy of Achievement profile also includes a biography, profile, and a gallery of photographs.
This interview was part of the Open Mind series hosted by Richard Heffner on PBS. It was broadcast on May 11, 1985. Running time is 28:32. A full transcript is available here.
Moyers & Company | Jonas Salk on Searching for the Next Medical Miracle
Bill Moyers interviews Jonas Salk on February 18, 1990, five years before Salk died. Includes Salk talking about the purpose of this life. The link goes to a 4:04 video clip and as well as an interview transcript.
21st Century | Dr. Jonas Salk’s Last Interview
On May 11, 1995, Warren Olney hosted an episode of “21st Century” that turned out to be the last interview with Jonas Salk. The producer of the show, Les Guthman, recalls that Salk came into the studio, looked over the questions that had been prepared about the ravages of polio and his discovery, and then said he preferred to talk about his current research into an AIDS vaccine. Running time: 26:00
The Library Channel | Creativity, Culture and Community: The Legacy of Jonas Salk
October 30, 2015. An evening of conversation and celebration at the close of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Jonas Salk featuring his sons Jonathan and Peter, author Mary Walshok and Gary Robbins, science editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune. The panel reflects on how Jonas Salk, his wife Francoise Gilot and his Institute shaped San Diego and its fledgling biomedical community; the interplay between Salk and other leaders in building the civic infrastructure, and other remembrances from the Salk brothers about their father’s discovery of a vaccine for polio. Running time: 57:00. Introductory remarks followed by panel discussion. Discussion begins at 6:53.