Philip Johnson was among the most famous architects of the 20th century, however, also among the most controversial — he called himself a whore, and he had been a proponent of architecture styles but abandoned them easily. The 47-acre estate for himself and his partner, artwork collector David Whitney, includes 10 pavilions which Johnson designed in an eclectic manner over five decades. The most well known is that the Glass House, he designed and built from the late 1940s.
Today the Philip Johnson Glass House is owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation; Johnson willed his estate into the trust prior to his death in 2005. Since 2007 that the NTHP has provided seasonal tours of the estate and the Glass House pavilion. While the entire 47-acre chemical is known as the Glass House, within this ideabook the expression denotes the construction from 1949; references into the bigger estate will be indicated otherwise.
The Glass House at a Glance
Year built: 1949
Architect: Philip Johnson
Location: New Canaan, Connecticut
Visiting info: Individual, private and group tours available
Size: 1,720 square feet
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The Philip Johnson Glass House
Philip Johnson was born in 1906 but did not graduate from the Harvard Graduate School of Design until 1943. (He received an arts degree from Harvard in 1930.) Before graduating and practicing as an architect, he was founding director of the Department of Architecture at MoMA, co-curating the powerful 1932 International Exhibition of Modern Architecture. The series introduced European modernism into the American people and put the emphasis on style over substance (another contentious part of Johnson’s lifetime).
The Philip Johnson Glass House
How did Johnson manage to accumulate nearly 50 acres in one of the most expensive areas of New England and be his own client on 10 occasions? Partly due to his long and successful career, but largely due to family prosperity. While his sisters were given land, he received stock in Alcoa — and the gain in the aluminum business’s inventory supposed Johnson’s riches exceeded his father’s from the 1920s, solidifying his way for a long time.
A couple of years after receiving his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Harvard, he bought 5 acres of land at New Canaan and started strategies on what would become the Glass House. At precisely the same period, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was starting a commission for Edith Farnsworth west of Chicago. Even though Mies’ raised glass box wouldn’t be completed until 1951, Johnson was conscious of it and was affected by it. Nevertheless Johnson departed from Mies at a number of ways, as we’ll see, making the homes just as different as they are similar.
The Philip Johnson Glass House
The preceding aerial perspective and this website strategy position the Glass House around in the center of the 47 acres which Johnson would accumulate over the years. The land is composed by rock walls which hark back to the farms which once dotted the region. The Glass House really breaks apart among the rock walls, positioned on a prow overlooking the land to the west which falls off to a little lake.
John Hill
The solution into this Glass House is on a diagonal path in the road. Johnson was affected by interpretations of the Parthenon, in Athens, that emphasized a diagonal strategy that highlighted the temple three-dimensional form. So even though the Glass House is mostly presented through photographs like the initial one, the photograph shown this is the glance that is observed on strategy. The rock wall that is broken slightly protects the Glass House, so it is not seen in its entirety until one is close, yet still at an angle.
John Hill
Among the primary questions that a lot of people have upon learning about the Glass House is, Where did Johnson sleep? The solution is surprising to most: at the Brick House.
The Glass House offers very little solitude, even on such a large estate, so Johnson built another building at precisely the same time, one which is predominantly solid. (Skylights and windows facing north bring in natural light.) The two buildings face each other across a well-manicured yard, a surface which strengthens the Glass House as being a pavilion, a statement in the landscape.
John Hill
The Glass House consists of three chief materials: glass, steel (painted black) and brick. The glass panes are big (about 8 feet tall and 13 to 17 feet wide), but they don’t quite reach from ceiling to floor. Smaller panes at the base provide a modern variant of a seat rail at the perimeter, but they do not consist of operable vents; doorways at the center of each altitude would have to be opened to naturally stabilize the inside.
The steel is closely ascribed to blur the distinction between construction and framing. Contrary to the Farnsworth House’s clear awareness of construction, the Glass House seems to be a roof propped upon glass framing and walls.
John Hill
The third material is brick, and this is used for the ground and a toilet enclosure which also acts as a hearth (next photo). The herringbone pattern on the ground generates some ambiguity between outside and inside, particularly as it’s always seen with all the yard extending from it on all sides.
John Hill
The brick cylinder, which divides up through the roof and is visible from all sides, was inspired by a burnt-out home Johnson saw in Poland, where he explained, “nothing was left but the bases and chimneys of brick” This weighty (literally and metaphorically) insertion to the Glass House counters the walls, anchoring the home as it looks to remote vistas. (Notice Poussin’s “The Burial of Phocion,” which has a similar accent upon the landscape.)
John Hill
The timber millwork in the previous photo separates the open living room from a sleeping place that faces north. While the bed indicates that Johnson would sleep on occasion (he had been moved to and died in this bed in 2005), it’s easy to see how difficult it is to sleep there regularly. Privacy could be accomplished only through the sliding displays (visible in a few previous photographs), and it would be difficult to sleep well past dawn, barely ideal after a night of one of Johnson and Whitney’s famed parties.
The Philip Johnson Glass House
As mentioned before, the Glass House sits on a plinth above a slope. This separation is characterized by low railings which work with the home to make it truly distinct from the landscape.
John Hill
Yet even as the orthogonal and hard edges of the Glass House and its own manicured yard sit in opposition to the larger landscape, the relationship between nature and house is important. Here’s the view from the house prior to the little lake, where Johnson later added a Lakeside Pavilion (1962) and outside which the Lincoln Kirstein Tower (1985). The latter is a climbing sculpture which supposedly has an inscription on top, one which cannot be uttered to other people once read. (Unfortunately the NTHP is not eager to let visitors climb it.)
John Hill
A few of the additional structures illustrate the eclectic nature of Johnson’s architecture on the estate following the Glass House has been built. Here’s the Painting Gallery in 1965, inspired by a grave in Mycenae, Greece.
John Hill
Here’s the Library/Study, which was painted white when completed in 1980, but he later changed into a soft brown. The one-room area has just one window, looking west into the Ghost House (1984), visible in the space. That is indicative of Johnson’s and Whitney’s carefully planned paths and vistas on the estate.
John Hill
The previous building on the estate is Da Monsta, inspired by Frank Stella and completed in 1995. The construction was designed to be an entrance pavilion for its future house-museum, but taxpayers opposed the traffic this would create, so today the visitor centre is situated in downtown New Canaan, across the road from the railway station.
The Philip Johnson Glass House
A floor plan of the Glass House reveals just three bits inside the 32- by 56-foot rectangle: The circular bathroom-hearth and the millwork dividing the living space from the bedroom were already discussed; final is the kitchen-bar from the lower-left corner.
The Philip Johnson Glass House
References
Farnsworth House and The Glass House. Modern Views. Assouline, 2010.
Frampton, Kenneth and Larkin, David. American Masterworks: The Twentieth Century House. Rizzoli, 1995. Gorlin, Alexander. Tomorrow’s Homes: New England Modernism. Rizzoli, 2011. The National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Glass House. Rizzoli, 2011.
Philip Johnson Glass House, National Trust for Historic Preservation
The Philip Johnson Glass House
The Glass House, built between 1949–1995 is a National Trust Historic Site located in New Canaan, CT.. The 49-acre landscape includes 14 structures(such as the Glass House 1949), and comes with a permanent collection of 20th century painting and sculpture, together with temporary exhibitions. The tour period runs from May to November and advance reservations are required. For more information and tickets, click here or telephone -LRB-866-RRB- 811-4111.
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