Fisher House (Hatboro, Pennsylvania)
The foundation of the home is built entirely of stone in, for Kahn, a traditional style of building. The stone foundation was necessary due to the home’s placement on a slope and its need for a solid anchoring into the ground of the site. The exterior and interior portions of the home are made from the same cedar wood sourced from the local Pennsylvania area. This was done to keep down costs. The woodwork of the Fisher house is often viewed as the most comprehensive of any of his woodwork during the period. Later projects were said to lack the continuity of the Fisher House, often smaller details such as interior doors were left unadorned in a way that left the project feeling incomplete to viewers. It was best in the end that Kahn was not allowed to build from all stone, because if he had the home would have been lacking in much of the great detail work that makes it so famous. The use of cedar wood throughout the interior and exterior of the home compelled Kahn to create amazing details in the building simply by folding windows into the building envelope to provide new habitable space on both the interior and exterior of the building. Had Kahn been left to build the Fisher House entirely from stone on the exterior then the details he created from windows never would have come into existence.
Academia del Sagrado Corazón (Puerto Rico)
After the early school was destroyed, it was decided to rebuild the school with a cement block structure that would be able to withstand future hurricanes. The land where the new building was to be constructed belonged to the government of Puerto Rico. However, building a cement block structure would be too expensive, far beyond the financial contributions that the project could receive. Therefore, a mortgage was needed for the project. But to have a mortgage on the land, the land could not belong to the government, instead it had to belong to the school. Since the government was constitionally prohibited from donating the land to a church, a group of parishioners came together to form a non-profit association that would build and administer the school. After lobbying the legislature, the association bought the land from the government for $1 with the condition that this association build and run the school. The association obtained the necessary funds with personal financial guarantess from its members.