Here is a 30 year old picture of the house. It is currently considered "threatened" because of its condition:

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I sense drainage issues from that roof if not meticulously maintained, especially from the angle of the old photo. EEk.

Interesting how very few windows there are in the front. Guess the view is out back. Gotta say, I bet it was ugly even when new, but probably interesting enough on the outside and nice enough inside that one wouldn't mind.

It is very odd-looking from the outside but the old inside photo is pretty cool.

I see houses in this condition all the time on the Old House Dreams blog.

Very interesting on the inside. I wonder if the outside is repairable. It's a shame it's in such terrible condition.

There is a bit of this going on with that upper roof, not my favorite sort of shape:

There is at least one floor to ceiling window in each room, some of them are glass doors. I live in a house of this sort. It looks like it has no windows right up front,but the interior is filled with light most of the day.

This post was edited by palimpsest on Sun, Jan 25, 15 at 22:28

So of course I had to look up his other works, and found that he designed the Kimbell Art Museum in Ft. Worth. I didn't know that; I always liked how that museum seems like a work of art itself, and the vaulted windows bring in natural, but indirect, light.

Interesting shapes and light, but so far from practical. Not only is the roof design worrisome, but from interior shots, it doesn't look like there's a drop of insulation in any of the ceilings...and lots of concrete walls....like an ice box. Maybe the Quakers who owned it were tougher stock ...

While I can appreciate the artistry of bringing what hasn't existed before to life, the practical side of me says, if you're making a building for people to live in, can you at least make it livable?

I can't imagine how much it would cost to bring it back to life should someone want to.... the yard is a disaster, too...lots of money for not a lot of house.

I have mixed feelings about this house and I find the shape of the upper vault, with those acute projecting eaves kind of "threatening" looking. It doesn't have the refinement of form that most of his work does.

If my architect, who had worked for Kahn at one point, and was heavily influenced by him, had designed this--I would be more impressed by it, if that makes sense.

My row of houses and the ones on the adjacent block all have roofs with these valleys and water infiltration and ice dams are a big problem. The ones on the next block all have steep mansards attached to each other with these deep clefts in between

Perfect example of, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

One of our clients (J. Post) redesigned another Louis Kahn house in Pennsylvania, using some custom furniture that we made for the project, and many architects were upset that the house was being redesigned at all, despite the fact that it is under private ownership and is not a historical landmark.

I am not a fan of Louis Kahn and find a lot of his work to be brutal to begin with, but my boss (the owner of the company) loves him. There was an exhibit of his work at the L.A. County museum a few years back, and I found most of his work to be somewhat depressing - especially from the outside. My brother went to SUNY Albany for his masters in fine arts, and the campus there has some Kahn buildings which DB hated. I think the Kimball Art Museum was an exception in his body of work, and I do like that building.

Thanks for sharing the photos - the house is interesting, to say the least, if impractical. Unfortunately, many architects do not seem to care enough about how practical some of their designs are and sometimes ignore the wishes of the owners.

Here is a link that might be useful: Louis Kahn 1971 Korman House

Well, I know a few architects, two of whom worked for Kahn at one point and a few classicists, and when I tell them who designed my house, they almost always say " . . . . oh . . . well, you know, then that he (did some really weird stuff), (did some really terrible stuff), (never had a decent budget) etc.

But while my house is surface ugly, like a (reasonably conversant) brutalist, the architect really understood Volumes, and getting Light into the interiors.

I like a lot of Kahn's work, but if you are into pretty houses or conventionally beautiful details to the extent that they trump other aspects like volume relationships and interplay of light within the interiors. --you aren't going to like it. Lots of people like houses that have a bunch of pretty details tacked onto awkward floor plans, hard to furnish rooms poor proportions and other issues. In fact that seems to be what people are embracing now, Ugly or not, there is rarely a badly proportioned room in a Kahn house.

I have pretty catholic tastes when it comes to design, and I would say authenticity is the most important thing to me. It doesn't matter what style it is as long as it's a good example of what it is.

I would never have guessed this house was Louis Kahn. I don't think this is a great example of his work. If it had been designed by a few of the other local brutalists, I would have thought it a more typical example of some of their work.

It's hard to say whether this house is impractical though, or not without knowing more about it or considering it within the context of when it was built.

In 1957 when this house was designed, many houses were uninsulated or under insulated, and here at least, many houses were masonry with furring strips and plaster board on the exterior walls--conventional looking or not. I did a project on a colonial revival rancher of the period that had All the problems this one appears to have but the ranch is "charming" and this house is "ugly" --so this one isn't forgiven as easily. I think the roof issue could be solved on this house as easily as it is any house with vaulted ceilings and a two dozen peaks and valleys--which describes most of the houses over on the Building a House forum.

I was referring to all the raw cement block walls that seem to be part of the living space.

Pal, an acquaintance of mine whose family are rather well known Philadelphia (and beyond) architects, recently wrote a book about Louis Kahn. You might enjoy it.

As for the house, it looks like a pile of headaches to me

Here is a link that might be useful: Louis I Kahn Architect

There's nothing about that roof a little (OK, a lot) of WR Grace Ice and Water Shield wouldn't fix. I'd do a gypcrete pour over the existing slab floor with radiant heat, and might even take it up the wall like a swimming pool with the tubing underneath if I couldn't fur it out and add insulation without affecting the rest of the originality of the home. It could still be scored to resemble the original block that way, but at least you'd be warm.

I really love the interior photo you posted as it reminds me of a chapel.

I kind of like the little outbuilding-like 'rooms' arranged around the outside of the central lantern. They almost look Japanese to me, I guess it's the combination of modest size, low hip roof, deep eaves and vertical siding. That it looks like the rear hips drain back toward the house volume isn't promising.

Life goal: live in a repurposed church.

without commenting on the specifics of this house, I just want to say - thank goodness for daring architects and brave home builders. I adore such experiments and applaud shelter diversity. I get so tired of the same builder houses that go on and on.

Right Annie, and I think one of the reasons this house isn't as successful as the others is because it just looks like so much exposed concrete. It might look fine, furnished properly, but a lot of his stuff looks pretty interesting empty.

But Brutalism is derived from a term that means Raw Concrete. I think that successfully done, brutal concrete spaces (or any minimalist space) are sort of a "container" for the contents and people it houses: you aren't supposed to pay too much attention to the container.

I think these examples of his work are more successful:

Esherick House:

Fisher House:
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National Assembly Building, Bangladesh

This post was edited by palimpsest on Mon, Jan 26, 15 at 14:26

It made me think of a spaceship landing on top of a house, which made me think of the 2003 renovation of Soldier Field in Chicago. (If you're not familiar, it's a very modern addition built on top of a multi-columned Neoclassical design. The addition caused Soldier Field to lose its status as a National Historic Landmark.)

As odd as the outside of that house looks (to me), the inside is really cool. Too bad about the condition.

Here's something sort of interesting. This is the Trenton Bath House at the Jewish Community Center in New Jersey. It was completed in 1955. It was recently restored after being endangered for a long time

The house in question was designed in 1957. Maybe the clients liked the bath house, maybe he was on a theme.

Looks vaguely Indonesian. Perhaps he had a bit of the tiki bug? I think he did a building in Bangladesh maybe a bit later.

Trader Vic's in Qatar:

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Here is the complex Kahn did in Bangladesh.

If you have seen the movie My Architect, maybe you felt as I did that he was least appreciated in his own city. While Edmund Bacon criticized him to his own son in an interview, when his son was walking through the buildings in Bangladesh, his guide was getting choked up talking about the beauty and power he felt in the buildings.

I think it would be a neat house if the outside siding was redone with cement or rock. There are several ways that house could be redone to support the look of that roofline. Currently it just looks cheap and poorly thought out. I get the impression they ran out of monney when they got to the siding

Madeyna, I think you are right that the budget was less on this project than might have been typical, but I don't think the siding was dictated by budget because it shows up on a lot of Kahn residences. I think poor maintenance has been an issue

palimpsest, that you for mentioning that documentary. Several years ago I had seen some clips (including scenes of the Bangladesh capital building) and filed away a thought that I might want to watch the film some day.

To me, the house in the original post looks wrong in the snow, while the Bangladesh building looks right in its setting.

I was thinking that you could add rigid board to the outside of the exterior walls, then finish with copper siding. In my fantasy world.

" the architect really understood Volumes, and getting Light into the interiors. "

Don't know if you've ever been to Kahn's Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, CT, but that description sums up the museum building perfectly. YCBA is a wonderful place to view art exhibits -- flattering, soft natural lighting abounds and the gallery space is almost intimate.

I'd forgotten about that documentary, My Architect. It's the one where Kahn's son finds out that Kahn had 3 families, each unaware of the other two

Below is a link to pal's house. I wonder if the kitchen is original. Seems funny that a significant architect like Kahn would use pedestrian, stock materials like 2 inch tile mosaics and raised panel cabinet doors. (Though I'm enjoying the look of 2 inch tile mosaics again, and the cabinet wood looks to be of good quality)

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to the Clever House

This post was edited by awm03 on Tue, Jan 27, 15 at 15:07

Not that I'm a fan of a lot of brutalist works, but the ones you posted are certainly more successful...probably because there is a big difference between a concrete wall and cement blocks...

awm,

I don't think the kitchen cabinets are original. I am pretty sure they would've been slab doors. The 2x2 tile might be original. Kahn used a lot of modest materials, and architects tend to design fairly utilitarian kitchens--especially in that era it was probably treated as a service area.

My house was designed by Hyman Cun1n, an architecture-school friend of Louis Kahn's at U-Penn. There's a photo of those two together in this book. He coincidentally also was the architect of a New Jersey JCC, though not the Trenton one shown above. Though nowhere near as famous or prolific as Kahn, he clearly shared the same aesthetic and was an unappreciated talent. My house built in 1951 is basically the one in the first post minus the funky roof. Everything else, like the short gunslit windows in the front walls or the wood-beamed interior could be Kahn's work. My home also has the same large glass panes that wrap around the corners as the Fisher house.

LOL at the '58 Packard fins on top of other fins. Those sold abysmally - less than 2,000 for the entire year, and it's not hard to see why that was the last year they were made. Even sadder considering just a few years earlier they sold about 60,000 cars which were graced with these "cathedral" taillamps which are a thing of beauty. Photos don't capture how elegant these look in three dimensions with the perfectly cylindrical lenses with an arch that sweeps over and above them.

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