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Glass House
The Glass House (or Johnson House) is a historic house museum on Ponus Ridge Road in New Canaan, Connecticut, built in 1948–49. The architect Philip Johnson designed the house as his own residence. The New York Times has called the Glass House his "signature work".
According to Alice T. Friedman, the Glass House may have been derived from the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois, by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, which was completed in 1951, two years after the Glass House. Johnson curated an exhibit of Mies van der Rohe work at the Museum of Modern Art in 1947, featuring a model of the glass Farnsworth House. It was an important and influential project for Johnson and for modern architecture. The building is an example of minimal structure, geometry, proportion, and the effects of transparency and reflection. The estate includes other buildings designed by Johnson that span his career. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997. It is now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is open to the public for guided tours, which begin at a visitors center at 199 Elm Street in New Canaan.
The house is an example of early use of industrial materials in home design, such as glass and steel. Johnson lived at the weekend retreat for 58 years; 45 years with his long time companion David Whitney, an art critic and curator who helped design the landscaping and largely collected the art displayed there.
The house is mostly hidden from the street. It is behind a stone wall at the edge of a crest in Johnson's estate overlooking a pond. Grass and gravel strips lead toward the building. The house is 56 feet (17 m) long, 32 feet (9.8 m) wide and 10.5 feet (3.2 m) high. The kitchen, dining, and sleeping areas were all in one glass-enclosed room, which Johnson initially lived in, together with the brick guest house. Later, the glass-walled building was used only for entertaining. The exterior sides of the Glass House utilize charcoal-painted steel and glass. The brick floor is 10 inches (25 cm) above the ground. The interior is open, with the space divided by low walnut cabinets; a brick cylinder contains the bathroom and is the only object to reach floor-to-ceiling.
The house builds on ideas of German architects from the 1920s ("Glasarchitektur"). In a house of glass, the views of the landscape are its "wallpaper" ("I have very expensive wallpaper," Johnson once said.) Johnson was also inspired by the design of Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House. The Glass House contains a collection of Bauhaus items including furniture designed by Mies.
Johnson is quoted as saying that his idea for Glass House grew from "a burnt wooden village I saw once where nothing was left but foundations and chimneys of brick." Mark Lamster, in his biography of Johnson The Man in the Glass House, notes that this was plausibly Johnson's attempt to "intentionally re-create the 'stirring spectacle' that was the burning of Jewish shtetls he had witnessed driving through Poland with the Wehrmacht". Historian Anthony Vidler went further stating that the Glass House could be read as "a Polish farmhouse 'purified' by the fire of war of everything but its architectural 'essence'".
The pastoral landscape surrounding the buildings was designed by Johnson and Whitney, with manicured areas of gravel or grass, trees grouped in what Johnson called outdoor "vestibules", and with care taken in the shape of the slopes and curves of the ground. In part, the landscape was a reflection of a landscape painting, The Funeral of Phocion by School of Nicolas Poussin (circa 1648) placed in a seating area of Glass House. The view through the glass walls to the landscaped grounds was strikingly similar, as Johnson designed it to resemble Poussin's picture. The estate overlooks the valley of the small Rippowam River to the west (seen from the back of Glass House, past a grassy rise). To the north and south are sloping scenery that particularly mimic the painting.
Johnson spent three years designing the structure, which was originally one of two buildings (along with the brick guest house) on what was then an 11-acre (45,000 m2) tract.
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Glass House
The Glass House (or Johnson House) is a historic house museum on Ponus Ridge Road in New Canaan, Connecticut, built in 1948–49. The architect Philip Johnson designed the house as his own residence. The New York Times has called the Glass House his "signature work".
According to Alice T. Friedman, the Glass House may have been derived from the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois, by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, which was completed in 1951, two years after the Glass House. Johnson curated an exhibit of Mies van der Rohe work at the Museum of Modern Art in 1947, featuring a model of the glass Farnsworth House. It was an important and influential project for Johnson and for modern architecture. The building is an example of minimal structure, geometry, proportion, and the effects of transparency and reflection. The estate includes other buildings designed by Johnson that span his career. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997. It is now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is open to the public for guided tours, which begin at a visitors center at 199 Elm Street in New Canaan.
The house is an example of early use of industrial materials in home design, such as glass and steel. Johnson lived at the weekend retreat for 58 years; 45 years with his long time companion David Whitney, an art critic and curator who helped design the landscaping and largely collected the art displayed there.
The house is mostly hidden from the street. It is behind a stone wall at the edge of a crest in Johnson's estate overlooking a pond. Grass and gravel strips lead toward the building. The house is 56 feet (17 m) long, 32 feet (9.8 m) wide and 10.5 feet (3.2 m) high. The kitchen, dining, and sleeping areas were all in one glass-enclosed room, which Johnson initially lived in, together with the brick guest house. Later, the glass-walled building was used only for entertaining. The exterior sides of the Glass House utilize charcoal-painted steel and glass. The brick floor is 10 inches (25 cm) above the ground. The interior is open, with the space divided by low walnut cabinets; a brick cylinder contains the bathroom and is the only object to reach floor-to-ceiling.
The house builds on ideas of German architects from the 1920s ("Glasarchitektur"). In a house of glass, the views of the landscape are its "wallpaper" ("I have very expensive wallpaper," Johnson once said.) Johnson was also inspired by the design of Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House. The Glass House contains a collection of Bauhaus items including furniture designed by Mies.
Johnson is quoted as saying that his idea for Glass House grew from "a burnt wooden village I saw once where nothing was left but foundations and chimneys of brick." Mark Lamster, in his biography of Johnson The Man in the Glass House, notes that this was plausibly Johnson's attempt to "intentionally re-create the 'stirring spectacle' that was the burning of Jewish shtetls he had witnessed driving through Poland with the Wehrmacht". Historian Anthony Vidler went further stating that the Glass House could be read as "a Polish farmhouse 'purified' by the fire of war of everything but its architectural 'essence'".
The pastoral landscape surrounding the buildings was designed by Johnson and Whitney, with manicured areas of gravel or grass, trees grouped in what Johnson called outdoor "vestibules", and with care taken in the shape of the slopes and curves of the ground. In part, the landscape was a reflection of a landscape painting, The Funeral of Phocion by School of Nicolas Poussin (circa 1648) placed in a seating area of Glass House. The view through the glass walls to the landscaped grounds was strikingly similar, as Johnson designed it to resemble Poussin's picture. The estate overlooks the valley of the small Rippowam River to the west (seen from the back of Glass House, past a grassy rise). To the north and south are sloping scenery that particularly mimic the painting.
Johnson spent three years designing the structure, which was originally one of two buildings (along with the brick guest house) on what was then an 11-acre (45,000 m2) tract.