The gallery's modernist main building, built from 1947-1953, was among the first designed by Louis Kahn, who taught architecture at Yale.[1]("Kahn played a major role in Yale's own artistic development. And Yale in turn would give Kahn the commission that transformed his career as an architect.")[6] Although the Art Gallery with steel structure and reinforced concrete may seem simple to the eye, it was designed in a rigorous process.[7] Kahn and Anne Tyng, the first woman licensed as an architect in the state of Pennsylvania[8] and an employee of Kahn's independent practice, "devised a slab that was to be poured into metal forms in the shape of three-sided pyramids. When the forms were removed, they left a thick mass of concrete imprinted with tetrahedral openings."[6] The triangular ceiling of the gallery was designed by Tyng, who was fascinated by geometry and octet-truss construction.[9]