Modernist Houses and Historic Preservation (or not) on Long Island

Saving (or not) Modernism in the Hamptons and What Historic Preservation is Doing to American Cities

Two different perspectives on houses and preservation that should have more of an overlap in Long Island, New York

Featured image: The Geller I house by Marcel Breuer in Lawrence, New York. Demolished 2022. Source: Docomomo/Syracuse University.

The Esherick House

A few years after completing the Trenton Bath House, Louis Kahn designed the one-bedroom Esherick house for a bookstore owner who wanted plenty of reading nooks. The current owners conducted a 17 month restoration of the house.

Esherick House, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. Source: philly.curbed.com/photography by Heidi’s Bridge.

Modernism and Louis Kahn’s Trenton Bath House

Source: TCM

What does concrete block want? Probably a sympathetic and historically accurate restoration.

Louis Kahn is considered one of the most important architects of the twentieth century, but his early career was unremarkable. When Kahn was about fifty, he traveled through Italy, Greece, and Egypt. The ancient architecture he studied there transformed him, and when he returned to the United States, one of the first buildings he designed was the Trenton Bath House, one component of the Trenton Jewish Community Center. This unassuming structure, completed in 1957, is a landmark in Modernism and marks a turning point in Kahn’s design vision, and in twentieth century architecture.

Source: TCM