Esherick House
Encyclopedia
The Esherick House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, is one of the most studied of the nine built houses designed by American architect Louis Kahn
. Commissioned by Margaret Esherick, it was completed in 1961.
The house is noted especially for its spatial organization and for the ventilation and natural lighting provided by its unusual window and shutter configuration. A kitchen of wood and copper was created for the house by Wharton Esherick
, a nationally-known craftsman and artist.
. Located at 204 Sunrise Lane in the Chestnut Hill
neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, U.S., it was commissioned by Margaret Esherick in 1959 and completed in 1961. Its copper and wood kitchen was created by Wharton Esherick
, a nationally-known craftsman and artist who was also her uncle. The Esherick House received the Landmark Building Award from the Philadelphia chapter of the American Institute of Architects
in 1992 and was added to Pennsylvania Register of Historic Places in 2009.
The 2500 sq feet (230 sq m), single-bedroom house is a flat-roofed, rectangular solid with its long side facing the street. The primary building material is concrete block with stucco facing.
Kahn designed an addition to the house in 1962-1964 for its subsequent owner, Mrs. C. Parker, but it was never built. Designed to blend seamlessly with the existing house, the addition would have increased the house's size significantly by extending the house to the left as one faces the front door.
The most prominent served space is the two-story living room that occupies all of the house to the right of the front door. Most of its front wall is occupied by a built-in bookcase (Margaret Esherick was a bookseller) that reaches up to the horizontal window at the second story. The side wall contains a deep fireplace.
The adjacent servant space is a thin communication strip that contains the front and back doors plus the two balconies above them, all of which are set in alcoves. This strip also contains the house's stairway and a gallery at the top of the stairs that overlooks the living room.
To the left of the front door is a served space occupied by the foyer and dining room on the ground floor and the bedroom on the upper floor. Like the living room, the bedroom runs the full width of the house from front to rear.
At the far left of the house is the remaining servant space, occupied on the ground floor by kitchen, laundry room and bathroom, and on the upper floor by bathroom and closets. All the plumbing of the house is in this strip. On the upper floor, the bathtub is located not in the area with the toilet but in an adjoining area that contains a fireplace. The bathtub has a sliding wooden cover that can be pulled over it to convert it into a sofa beside the fireplace.
The two-story windows in front have a T-shape that also appears in other Kahn designs, notably the Tribune Review Publishing Company Building
; these windows provide a degree of privacy on the ground floor and openness on the upper floor. They cannot be opened, but they are accompanied by shutters for ventilation. In the living room, for example, the bookshelf at the front is divided in half by two narrow wooden shutters, one atop the other. Because there is no glass behind the shutters, they are kept closed in winter, creating a high wall that provides a sense of protection against the weather.
The side wall of the house to the right of the front door, the side with the living room, has a single tall, thin window above the fireplace that frames the chimney, which stands apart from the house itself. The window, which is not much wider than the chimney, permits only narrow glimpses through it. This window cannot be opened, and there are no shutters on this side of the house.
The side wall to the left of the front door, the side with the kitchen downstairs and bathroom space upstairs, has a variety of small windows that can be opened for ventilation.
The rear of the house faces a garden adjacent to a wooded public park. It has four large single-pane windows arranged in pairs, one window directly above the other, one window per floor. One pair serves the two-story living room and the other serves the space with the dining room downstairs and the bedroom upstairs. Each pair creates a nearly uninterrupted expanse of glass reaching from the bottom of the house to the top. These windows cannot be opened. They are provided with cloth roll shades for protection against the sun.
On both sides of each pair of these large windows are two-story stacks of shutters, four shutters per stack. They also reach from the bottom of the house to the top, and they can be opened and closed in any combination, creating an elaborate set of possible connections between indoors and outdoors. With the shutters open, the living and dining rooms have a completely open view into the back yard, and when all of the shutters and doors at the back of the house are open, most of the back wall seems to disappear.
The insides of both the front and rear walls of the living room, dining room and bedroom are lined with bookshelves and other structures that create an effective wall thickness of over two feet (60 cm). The resulting deep window recesses have a moderating effect on sunlight and ventilation.
that is now part of a National Historic Landmark
. Joseph Esherick
, Margaret's brother, was a leader of the architectural firm that completed Kahn's schematic design for the Graduate Theological Union
Library, now known as the Flora Lamson Hewlett Library
, at the University of California, Berkeley
, after Kahn's death.
Kahn also had connections to other notable architecture nearby. A few doors from the Esherick house is the Vanna Venturi House
, one of the first prominent works of postmodern architecture
, which was designed by Robert Venturi
for his mother. Kahn served as a critic on Venturi's thesis, made him a teaching assistant at the University of Pennsylvania
, where Kahn was a professor, and employed him in his architectural practice before Venturi began working independently.
Photos
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, is one of the most studied of the nine built houses designed by American architect Louis Kahn
Louis Kahn
Louis Isadore Kahn was an American architect, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935...
. Commissioned by Margaret Esherick, it was completed in 1961.
The house is noted especially for its spatial organization and for the ventilation and natural lighting provided by its unusual window and shutter configuration. A kitchen of wood and copper was created for the house by Wharton Esherick
Wharton Esherick
Wharton Esherick was a sculptor who worked primarily in wood. He reveled in applying the principles of sculpture to common utilitarian objects. Consequently he is best known for his sculptural furniture and furnishings...
, a nationally-known craftsman and artist.
Building details
The Esherick House is one of the most studied of the nine built houses designed by American architect Louis KahnLouis Kahn
Louis Isadore Kahn was an American architect, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935...
. Located at 204 Sunrise Lane in the Chestnut Hill
Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Chestnut Hill is a neighborhood in the Northwest Philadelphia section of the United States city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-Boundaries:Chestnut Hill is bounded as follows:...
neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, U.S., it was commissioned by Margaret Esherick in 1959 and completed in 1961. Its copper and wood kitchen was created by Wharton Esherick
Wharton Esherick
Wharton Esherick was a sculptor who worked primarily in wood. He reveled in applying the principles of sculpture to common utilitarian objects. Consequently he is best known for his sculptural furniture and furnishings...
, a nationally-known craftsman and artist who was also her uncle. The Esherick House received the Landmark Building Award from the Philadelphia chapter of the American Institute of Architects
American Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to support the architecture profession and improve its public image...
in 1992 and was added to Pennsylvania Register of Historic Places in 2009.
The 2500 sq feet (230 sq m), single-bedroom house is a flat-roofed, rectangular solid with its long side facing the street. The primary building material is concrete block with stucco facing.
Kahn designed an addition to the house in 1962-1964 for its subsequent owner, Mrs. C. Parker, but it was never built. Designed to blend seamlessly with the existing house, the addition would have increased the house's size significantly by extending the house to the left as one faces the front door.
Spatial organization
Kahn often divided his buildings into what he called served spaces (primary areas) and servant spaces (corridors, bathrooms, etc.) The Esherick house is organized into four alternating served and servant spaces, which in this case are parallel two-story strips that run the full width of the house between front to back.The most prominent served space is the two-story living room that occupies all of the house to the right of the front door. Most of its front wall is occupied by a built-in bookcase (Margaret Esherick was a bookseller) that reaches up to the horizontal window at the second story. The side wall contains a deep fireplace.
The adjacent servant space is a thin communication strip that contains the front and back doors plus the two balconies above them, all of which are set in alcoves. This strip also contains the house's stairway and a gallery at the top of the stairs that overlooks the living room.
To the left of the front door is a served space occupied by the foyer and dining room on the ground floor and the bedroom on the upper floor. Like the living room, the bedroom runs the full width of the house from front to rear.
At the far left of the house is the remaining servant space, occupied on the ground floor by kitchen, laundry room and bathroom, and on the upper floor by bathroom and closets. All the plumbing of the house is in this strip. On the upper floor, the bathtub is located not in the area with the toilet but in an adjoining area that contains a fireplace. The bathtub has a sliding wooden cover that can be pulled over it to convert it into a sofa beside the fireplace.
Windows and shutters
Each side of the house has a window and ventilation configuration that is distinctly different from that of the other three sides.The two-story windows in front have a T-shape that also appears in other Kahn designs, notably the Tribune Review Publishing Company Building
Tribune Review Publishing Company Building
The Tribune Review Publishing Company Building was designed by architect Louis Kahn as the office and printing plant for the Tribune Review newspaper in Greensburg, PA, about 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Although not in his usual line of work, Kahn accepted the commission at the request of...
; these windows provide a degree of privacy on the ground floor and openness on the upper floor. They cannot be opened, but they are accompanied by shutters for ventilation. In the living room, for example, the bookshelf at the front is divided in half by two narrow wooden shutters, one atop the other. Because there is no glass behind the shutters, they are kept closed in winter, creating a high wall that provides a sense of protection against the weather.
The side wall of the house to the right of the front door, the side with the living room, has a single tall, thin window above the fireplace that frames the chimney, which stands apart from the house itself. The window, which is not much wider than the chimney, permits only narrow glimpses through it. This window cannot be opened, and there are no shutters on this side of the house.
The side wall to the left of the front door, the side with the kitchen downstairs and bathroom space upstairs, has a variety of small windows that can be opened for ventilation.
The rear of the house faces a garden adjacent to a wooded public park. It has four large single-pane windows arranged in pairs, one window directly above the other, one window per floor. One pair serves the two-story living room and the other serves the space with the dining room downstairs and the bedroom upstairs. Each pair creates a nearly uninterrupted expanse of glass reaching from the bottom of the house to the top. These windows cannot be opened. They are provided with cloth roll shades for protection against the sun.
On both sides of each pair of these large windows are two-story stacks of shutters, four shutters per stack. They also reach from the bottom of the house to the top, and they can be opened and closed in any combination, creating an elaborate set of possible connections between indoors and outdoors. With the shutters open, the living and dining rooms have a completely open view into the back yard, and when all of the shutters and doors at the back of the house are open, most of the back wall seems to disappear.
The insides of both the front and rear walls of the living room, dining room and bedroom are lined with bookshelves and other structures that create an effective wall thickness of over two feet (60 cm). The resulting deep window recesses have a moderating effect on sunlight and ventilation.
Kahn connections
Architect Louis Kahn had several connections with the Esherick family. Besides designing this house for Margaret Esherick, he was a close friend of Wharton Esherick, Margaret's uncle, for whom he designed a studioWharton Esherick Studio
Wharton Esherick Studio, now housing the Wharton Esherick Museum, was the studio of the craftsman-artist Wharton Esherick , in Malvern, Pennsylvania...
that is now part of a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
. Joseph Esherick
Joseph Esherick
Joseph Esherick was an American architect.Esherick was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1937, Esherick set up practice in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1953 and taught at University of California, Berkeley for many years...
, Margaret's brother, was a leader of the architectural firm that completed Kahn's schematic design for the Graduate Theological Union
Graduate Theological Union
The Graduate Theological Union ' is a consortium of nine independent theological schools, and eleven centers and affiliates. Eight of the theological schools are located in Berkeley, California. The GTU was founded in 1962. It maintains the Graduate Theological Union Library, one of the most...
Library, now known as the Flora Lamson Hewlett Library
Flora Lamson Hewlett Library
The Flora Lamson Hewlett Library houses one of the largest collections of theological books in the United States.The building's distinctive, terraced design was based on preliminary sketches by famed architect Louis I...
, at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, after Kahn's death.
Kahn also had connections to other notable architecture nearby. A few doors from the Esherick house is the Vanna Venturi House
Vanna Venturi House
The Vanna Venturi House, one of the first prominent works of the postmodern architecture movement, is located in the suburban neighborhood of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
, one of the first prominent works of postmodern architecture
Postmodern architecture
Postmodern architecture began as an international style the first examples of which are generally cited as being from the 1950s, but did not become a movement until the late 1970s and continues to influence present-day architecture...
, which was designed by Robert Venturi
Robert Venturi
Robert Charles Venturi, Jr. is an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the major figures in the architecture of the twentieth century...
for his mother. Kahn served as a critic on Venturi's thesis, made him a teaching assistant at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, where Kahn was a professor, and employed him in his architectural practice before Venturi began working independently.
External links
General- Numerical Simulations of Airflow and Heat Transfer in Buildings. Chapter 4 of this Master's Thesis analyzes the effectiveness of the window and shutter system in the Esherick House. Pages 47–52 provide a helpful collection of annotated photos, diagrams and floor plans.
- Louis I. Kahn's Fisher House: A Case Study on the Architectural Detail and Design Intent. Chapter 4 (pages 104–136) of this Master's thesis is a comparative study of the wood detailing in Kahn's Fisher, Esherick and Korman Houses. It includes photos and floor plans.
- Models of the Esherick House
Photos
- Rear of the house, with most shutters closed
- Rear windows of dining room and bedroom, with some shutters open and with protective wooden covers above windows for pull-down shades
- The rear living room window from inside, with two bottom shutters open and six top shutters closed
- The bookcase at the front of the living room, with bottom shutter open and top shutter closed
- The free-standing chimney outside the narrow living room window above the fireplace
- The kitchen, which was designed by Wharton EsherickWharton EsherickWharton Esherick was a sculptor who worked primarily in wood. He reveled in applying the principles of sculpture to common utilitarian objects. Consequently he is best known for his sculptural furniture and furnishings...
- The gallery at the top of the stairs overlooking the living room
- The upstairs bathroom and fireplace, with cover pulled over tub to make a sofa
- Several photos, plus floor plans