page_title: Margaret Esherick House
section_title: Spatial organization
hierarchical_section_title: Margaret Esherick House / Building details / Spatial organization
caption_attribution_description: English: Esherick House designed by Louis Kahn. Located at 204 Sunrise Lane, in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia, about a block from Pastorious Park
context_page_description: The Esherick House in Philadelphia, 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.
context_section_description: 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 the Wharton Esherick designed kitchen, a utility room converted into an adjunctive kitchen space and a half bath, and on the upper floor by a bathroom, laundry area 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 seating area beside the fireplace.
caption: Front of house at right; kitchen side at left
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