The first phase of a larger commission to detail all of the facilities on site for the Jewish Community Centre in New Jersey, which included the Bath House itself, a day camp for children and a main building.
Kahn’s design for the Bath House’s plan is based on a tartan grid, with the narrow zones providing the square corner piers and rectangular servant zones. The layout is a cruciform plan comprised of a combination of square and circle forms, a device that Kahn employed right from the beginning of his designs for the building, which suggest he turned to classical precedents.
The nine-square plan is based on a tartan grid, with the narrow zones providing the square corner piers and rectangular servant zones. The corner piers are the primary structure of the buildings, and also serve for entrance, storage, access to vaults, and shelter for toilet facilities. The rectangular zones provide for circulation around the inner square focal point of each structure, and at the locker rooms provide natural light.
The entrance, which is on the inside south east corner, is not accessible from the main axis of the plan, hidden to general view and was identified by the landscaping layout as well as a mural. Upon entry, the roofless forecourt, central to the plan, is surrounded by the roofed pavilions at each of the four corners. To the left is the basket room where the visitors’ street clothes would be checked in before the men and women split off to their segregated sex changing rooms through a baffled entrance to either side of the forecourt. After changing, the visitors circulate back into the forecourt through another baffled entrance before ascending the processional staircase to the pool.
The formal, processional sequence of spaces includes the landscaping of the site which creates a similar theme of processional spaces on the approach to the Bath House. The treatment of the landscape of the Trenton site foreshadows Kahn’s other works such as the Salk Institute and the Kimbell Museum. The site’s designs focus on the creation of rooms, largely through closely placed trees. The Day Camp pavilions are shown in drawings as in a clearing of dense trees which creates an enclosed outdoor room; in reality, the pavilions are in an open field, and no planting was ever done. The grandeur of the 15ft high concrete blocks with pyramidal hipped roofs in an open field leaves it reminiscent of a ruin.
By creating a formal sequence of processional spaces across such as a controlled programme, Kahn has designed for the building to have to take clever cues from its materials and construction. The central courtyard space which is open to the air allows for the sense of scale of the structure to be fully realised, although small in footprint the 15ft concrete block work walls allow the structure to feel imposing and important, yet the roofless aspect allows for an influx of light which makes the space feel much larger than it is.
The processional ascension upwards from this area towards the pool holds an almost spiritual emotional response following the strict procession from the entrance to the site, across towards the bath house and through its previous rooms.
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