Louis Kahn's Fisher House

The building selected for this project is the Fisher House In Philadelphia By Louis I. Kahn. It took Kahn seven years and many different designs to complete this work starting from 1960. Though the Fisher House is one of the few private residences designed by Kahn that came to completion, it serves as a great instance of his architectural achievements through the underlying stylistic forms and philosophical values. For various reasons such as the recession caused by the second World War and stylistic differences of his Beaux Arts training, Kahn struggled to find commissions until two decade before his death in 1974. The projects completed during this period however are of great importance since Kahn was finally able to incorporate his training In Beaux Arts with those of the elements of modern and International style architecture. The intention of this paper is to explore through analytical investigation of the Fisher House, Kahn's articulation of his stylistic forms and spaces. The Fisher House is located in Hatboro, a quite residential suburb of Philadelphia with idyllic greenery and tall century old trees. The site of this building consists of a sloped rectangular plan that runs in the northeast-southwest direction. It is bounded on the southwest side by the rural road and on the opposite side by a gentle stream and the woods behind it.(Figures 1 and 2)

Fig. 1 Section diagram of the Site Fig. 2 Plan diagram of the site In the house built for Norman and Doris Fisher By Louis Kahn, issues regarding site planning are dealt with utmost devotion to the integration of structure and landscape. Upon entrance to the site from the rural road, the observer is encountered with three cubical volumes. These are the living and service areas. The two larger masses that make the living areas are connected to each other at forty five degrees angle and the service and storage area which is the smaller cube is located to the side. The

References: Brown, J.P. (1989). Louis Kahn in the Midwest. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago. Gast, K.P. (1977). Louis I. Kahn- Complete works. Leipzig: Jutte Druck.