stephanieNY

Yesterday was our field trip out to the Glass House in Connecticut. It was amazing. When I say "The Glass House", I really mean the site on which the-house-made-of-glass sits among thirteen other architectural structures. It's about 50 acres of rolling hills with architecture sprinkled across them - a glass house here, a brick house there, a sculpture gallery here, and a pavilion over there. It's really pretty brilliant.

So, the Glass House was designed by Philip Johnson as a weekend house for himself in 1949. He eventually took over about 10 plots of land around the site and designed and built more little buildings/sculptures/pavilions over the years. He was a big art collector and swung with the in-crowd - Andy Warhol, Mies van der Rohe were some of his buddies and guests at the house.

There was a lot of question yesterday on JP's originality as an architect. His glass house is accused of being a bad knock-off of Mies's glass house, the Farnsworth House. But, glass and house aside, I thought that his brilliance was in the entire site. What if instead of designing a house with a guest wing and a gallery wing and a place to work and sleep and eat, you split them up and design something purely for each purpose and then place them hundreds of yards apart...brilliant. Then there's the whole walking outside across a field just get a book you want to read issue. Further brilliance I think, forcing contemplation and premeditation in how you go about your day. I'm sure there's some Greek or Roman precedence to this, but to see it done with modern architecture, amazing. According to JP, when you pass through the gate at the driveway, you're then in the front vestibule of his home; and when you approach the stone walkway to the glass house, it's at that point that you're actually at his front door.