Home as Site: The Wharton Esherick Museum & Louis Kahn

Finding that he needed additional space in order to keep up with demand for his furniture, Esherick’s Workshop was built as an alternative to the small shop of his regular collaborator, cabinetmaker John Schmidt. While the nearby Studio and Garage had been constructed without formal plans, despite Esherick not being a trained architect, by the 1950s the requirement of a building permit necessitated that he find a licensed collaborator. Esherick turned to his renowned friend Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974), then a design critic and professor of architecture at Yale, where he had designed the university’s art gallery among other buildings. While Esherick leaned towards organic forms, Kahn was known for his rigid geometry; the resulting workshop is a marriage of two highly idiosyncratic creative minds. Three hexagonal bays made from concrete blocks each housed one function of the Workshop. Where the walls join, there seem to be dovetail-like joints cut from each corner. While Kahn’s drawings show straight walls, Esherick, who oversaw the construction, inserted a gentle curvature into the building’s lines. Although both Esherick and Kahn’s initials appear on the cornerstone, both men allowed the other to claim credit for the design. While the interior of the Workshop is not currently open to the public, long term plans include its transformation into public museum space exploring Esherick’s material practice and influences. The exterior, however, is a part of the regular Museum tour. 

 
Louis Kahn’s Architectural Archives are housed in the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. Kahn also designed a house for Wharton Esherick’s niece Margaret, one of only nine private residences by the architect.  

 
About the Wharton Esherick Museum 
The Wharton Esherick Museum is the home and studio of famed American artist Wharton Esherick, located atop Valley Forge Mountain in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Set on 12 wooded acres, the Museum campus is comprised of multiple buildings including Wharton Esherick’s Studio, which is now the centerpiece of the Museum. Esherick’s highly individual, hand-built Studio was constructed over a 40-year period beginning in 1926, incorporating Arts and Crafts, Expressionist, and organic designs. Two years later Esherick began his 1928 Expressionist garage, now our Visitor Center. In 1973, just one year after its official opening as a museum, the Studio was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1993, the Museum was designated a National Historic Landmark for Architecture. 
 
Esherick’s 1956 Workshop, designed in collaboration with Louis Kahn, is also a part of our campus and a treasured piece of our landmark status. Additionally, Sunekrest, the 19th-century farmhouse where the Eshericks first lived on Valley Forge Mountain, was reacquired in 2014, the Museum is currently in the early stages of a campus planning process to explore how the farmhouse can be incorporated into the Museum experience. 
 
The most recent addition to our campus is the Diamond Rock Schoolhouse. A Chester County landmark, this historic octagonal one-room schoolhouse located at the base of Diamond Rock Hill was an early painting studio for Esherick and is open to the public during select summer events. 
 
The Wharton Esherick Museum is a proud member of the Historic Artists’ Homes & Studios.