Designer of the Month: Philip Johnson

Week 4: The Glass House

My place in New Canaan is a kind of 'diary of an eccentric architect.' I have kept this diary for almost fifty years starting with the purchase of the land in 1946. When I first walked over the original five-acre section (the property today is around forty acres) I sited The Glass House where it is today. The contortions I went through before I actually built the house in 1949 are recorded elsewhere, but the setting on the hill I picked in the first five minutes. -Philip Johnson[1]

At the beginning of his architecture career, before he designed such structures as the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at The MoMA, the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center, the Fort Worth Water Garden, the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, and many others, Philip Johnson was recent graduate of Harvard's Graduate School of Design, slowly trying to build up a practice while simultaneously working on his career as a curator and writer.[2] In 1945, Johnson began his design for The Glass House, purchasing 5 acres in New Canaan, Connecticut in 1946 to serve as the site of the 56 by 32 foot rectangle of a home.[3]

Today, The Glass House is considered to be one one of the 20th century's greatest residential structures.[4] Simplicity itself, it consists of a floor and a roof and four walls of floor-to-ceiling glass that's held together by steel piers at its corners and on each of it's long sides.[5] According to Paul Goldberger's obituary of Johnson in The New York Times, "Like all of Mr. Johnson's early work, it was inspired by Mies, but its pure symmetry, dark colors and closeness to the earth marked it as a personal statement: calm and ordered rather than sleek and brittle."[6] This feeling the house being both within the environment and enveloped by it is a product of the openness of the floor plan combined with the abundance of glass. It's a gorgeous structure situated on the perfect site to best showcase it. With a floor plan of what is essentially one continuous room and living space, the Glass House is more a house in name only.[7] Which makes it especially interesting when you see the building located across from the Glass House: the Guest House.

Here's the interior of the Glass House's living room area. You can see the head-high closet/room divider in the background, and a bed is located on the other side. If you turned around from this view, you'd see the kitchen.

This cylindrical brick pillar is the only floor-to-ceiling "wall" in the entire house. This side shows the fireplace side, while the opposite side contains the house's bathroom.

Designed an completed at the same time as the Glass House, Johnson's Guest House, also known as the Brick House, was built to contrast the elegance and openness of its neighboring structure, it was similarly rectangular in shape although slightly smaller, made of brick and almost entirely windowless.[8] It also served to accommodate the amenities from which the Glass House had been freed; it had three bedrooms, a bath and utility space for the heating, electrical and water systems that serviced both itself and the Glass House, whose design didn't allow for such services.[9]

The interior of one of the rooms in the Guest House.

A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to participate in a tour of the Glass House just before the site was to be open to the public, and these pictures were taken by me from that visit. Today, the Glass House grounds are open to visitors who can participate in tours of the grounds and the many structures that Johnson designed and built on this extensive property (for more information, visit the Glass House website). What's so interesting about this property is that Johnson continued to design for it and build on to it over the course of his life. Getting the chance to visit is not only great because you get to see the glass and brick houses, but you also get to see the other structures that Johnson built, each of which represents a different phase in his long career as an architect.[10] A life-long collector and patron of the arts, Johnson often invited artist and designer friends of his out the compound for weekend visits, and you can see some of the incredible artwork from his private collection, on display in his art and sculpture galleries.

After the Guest House, the Pavilion, also known as Johnson's folly, was built in 1962. Appearing to float in a pond, the design is a false scale pavilion made up of 8-foot squares arranged more or less like a Mondrian painting.[11] After the Pavilion came the Painting Gallery, the above photograph of which shows the entrance. Built in 1965, this underground clover-leaf shaped gallery was designed as the result of a functional solution of having a central column in each "leaf" of the clover carry a screen for pictures, as Johnson described it, "like a Rolodex or a postcard rack."[12]

This picture gives you an idea of what the above description is talking about. Different-sized circles provide three differently scaled walls for hanging paintings.[13] Next came the Sculpture Gallery, in 1970, which is probably my favorite building in the entire compound.[14] Paul Goldberger, of The New York Times, calls it a "sharply defined, irregular white structure covered with a greenhouse like glass roof", with it's 1980 addition a "library of stucco with a rounded tower that from a distance looks like a miniature castle."[15]

As you can see from this view of the Sculpture Gallery, the white stucco addition gives the interior an almost Greek Isles appearance. Combined with greenhouse-like ceiling, the feeling of this building is very light and open, particularly in comparison to the underground Painting Gallery.

In 1984 comes the Ghost House, in which Johnson and his partner, David Whitney, grew lilies, seems to melt into the landscape.[16] A 15 by 15 foot construction of galvanized chain-link fencing built in honor of Johnson's friend Frank Gehry, who often used this material, the structure is designed as if taken from a child's drawing of a house: symmetrical with a 45-degree pitched gable.[17] Next comes the 1985 tower dedicated to Lincoln Kristein, the writer and New York City Ballet co-founder.[18] Placed in the landscape to make a point of interest, it intentionally punctuates the panorama from the house, and is actually not a tower at all, but a very steep and precarious stairway.[19]

Finally, Johnson built what he called ''Da Monsta,'' an irregularly shaped building of deep red with sharply curving walls, which was finished in 1995.[20] Set at the gate of the estate, Johnson already had plans for the compound for after his death, and wanted this building to serve as a visitors center, and which now holds a museum.[21]

[1] Philip Johnson, "Preface," Philip Johnson: The Glass House, ed. David Whitney and Jeffrey Kipnis (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), vii.

[2] Paul Goldberger, "Philip Johnson, Architecture's Restless Intellect, Dies at 98," The New York Times online, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/arts/design/27johnson.html (accessed September 17, 2009).

[3] Franz Schultze, Philip Johnson: Life and Work, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 188.

[4] Paul Goldberger, "Philip Johnson, Architecture's Restless Intellect, Dies at 98," The New York Times online, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/arts/design/27johnson.html (accessed September 17, 2009).

[5] Franz Schultze, Philip Johnson: Life and Work, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 188.

[6] Ibid., 188.

[7] Paul Goldberger, "Philip Johnson, Architecture's Restless Intellect, Dies at 98," The New York Times online, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/arts/design/27johnson.html (accessed September 17, 2009).

[8] Franz Schultze, Philip Johnson: Life and Work, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 194.

[9] Ibid., 194.

[10] Paul Goldberger, "Philip Johnson, Architecture's Restless Intellect, Dies at 98," The New York Times online, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/arts/design/27johnson.html (accessed September 17, 2009).

[11] Philip Johnson, "Preface," Philip Johnson: The Glass House, ed. David Whitney and Jeffrey Kipnis (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), viii.

[12] Ibid., viii.

[13] Ibid., viii.

[14] Ibid., viii.

[15] Paul Goldberger, "Philip Johnson, Architecture's Restless Intellect, Dies at 98," The New York Times online, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/arts/design/27johnson.html (accessed September 17, 2009).

[16] Philip Johnson, "Preface," Philip Johnson: The Glass House, ed. David Whitney and Jeffrey Kipnis (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), viii.

[17] Ibid., viii.

[18] Paul Goldberger, "Philip Johnson, Architecture's Restless Intellect, Dies at 98," The New York Times online, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/arts/design/27johnson.html (accessed September 17, 2009).

[19] Philip Johnson, "Preface," Philip Johnson: The Glass House, ed. David Whitney and Jeffrey Kipnis (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), viii.

[20] Paul Goldberger, "Philip Johnson, Architecture's Restless Intellect, Dies at 98," The New York Times online, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/arts/design/27johnson.html (accessed September 17, 2009).

[21] Ibid.