Fisher House 3h1us

Fisher House

Architect:

Louis I. Kahn

Year(s) of construction:

1960-1967

Location:

Hatboro, Pennsylvania, United States

Introduction "I always start with squares", said Louis Kahn. A quick look at the floors of some of his most famous buildings, from the bathrooms ofJewish Community Center in Trenton, the National Assembly of Bangladesh will be enough to confirm this observation. Sometimes the whole building is square (the Library of Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire), but more often the project is configured as a cluster of squares (the towers of the Richards Medical Research Building in Philadelphia , Pa.).

Situation Built on the outskirts of Hatboro, Pennsylvania State, USA.

Concept The Fisher House is the simplest expression of Kahn’s idea: two cubes, one the living room (served space) and the other the bedrooms (serving space), these two cubes merge on an angle apparently by chance, like dice thrown on a table. In fact, they are not perfect cubes and the "cube" of the living room is not even square in plan, but they are both close enough to be perceived as such.

Description

As in the Esherick House, ventilation is provided by windows with wooden shutters profoundly retarded considering the façade plane, so that these will not excel when they are open.

Windows The most complex aspect of the facade is the disposition of the windows, which have large glazed areas juxtaposed with smaller deep inbounds that contain smaller windows. This leads to an abstract geometry, which also reveals inside the house with items such as a bank window with an intricate composition in the living room. For Kahn, space and light were the same thing, and orientation, a precise art. The lounge area overlooks the north and the river, through an elaborate window in a corner that incorporates some tailor-made furniture. A few smaller windows located in the northwest and southwest facades balance the light entrance and help to soften the glare, allowing the occasional entry of sunshine rays in the afternoon.

Spaces Outside The exterior is pretty special, two cubic volumes, one of them placed at 45 degrees toward the other, with a slight connection between the two of them that creates a dynamic configuration. In a similar manner to the extent of the Art Gallery of Yale University, the Fisher's house uses an narrow wooden horizontal line on the facades to show the start of the second floor. A few yards from the main building two small apartments had been erected and are used as stocks.

Interior • Hall The fact that the living area is located in a separate block is an example of another very characteristic preference of Kahn’s. He did not like the buildings in a unified manner is divided into the interior to create usable space. Ideally, Kahn wanted each space, or room, having his own way. In a large building, it was seldom practical or economical, but a private home more easily allow closer to the ideal. The only volume area angulosa of orthogonally located is the stone fireplace in the living room, reiterating the 45-degree angle from the adjacent volume. • Dining The dining room, located behind the home, originally was going to be a bit dark and isolated, with only a small window, but insisted that customers wanted to have a view to the outside, so that a few months after the completion of the house, they introduced a larger window.

• Kitchen The living room of the house Fisher fills the form completely occupied, although the shares with the kitchen. This is because the cuisine has its own way, a cube within a cube. The space of the room, continues on and around it. • Bedrooms In the block for the two plants rooms, it is more difficult to maintain the formal integrity of each room. It has to be subdivided. However, each of his characters is complete and consistent. For example, the two bedrooms on the upper deck squares are oriented to the east (almost) perfect, with each quarter of the square floor plan, or eighth highest cube. The house also has a lobby at the main entrance, two bathrooms, one on each floor, a toilet, a dressing room and a basement - storage.

Structure The house stands on a platform, built with a lattice of wooden pillars on which to build the beams that lead to the construction of the plants below. To adapt to the slight inclination of the terrain, Kahn gave Fisher the house of a stone base that compensates for the change of slope and offers a lower level overlooking the garden.

Materials A loved Kahn stone, the materials from the ruins of antiquity that had so ired during his stay in Rome. Pennsylvania was cheaper to build in wood, so that, for the house Fisher, Kahn took smoothly traditional technology of the platform structure. But the sun was leaning toward a river and there was a need for a basement for storage. Therefore, Kahn was able to use masonry walls as a base for the wooden structure, taking it even to the heart of the living room, in the form of a home semi. The woodwork of the entire house is made of wood. The outer coating of the facades is of cedar wood. The house consists mainly of a vertical wood siding. The Fischer had waited almost seven years to get his house ready-your project always going to second place when it had engagements Kahn most important although it seems they liked, taking the job of cleaning and treating her regularly cedar siding, even many years after the end of the house.