The Glass House or Johnson house, built in 1949 in New Canaan, Connecticut, was designed by Philip Johnson as his own residence. It was an important and influential project for Johnson and for modern architecture. The building is an essay in minimal structure, geometry, proportion, and the effects of transparency and reflection. The estate includes other buildings designed by Johnson that span his career.
The house is an example of early use of industrial materials such as glass and steel in home design. Johnson lived at the weekend retreat for 58 years, and since 1960 with his longtime companion, David Whitney, an art critic and curator who helped design the landscaping and largely collected the art displayed there.
Read more about Glass House: House and Property, Reception, Tours and The Visitor Center
Famous quotes containing the words glass and/or house:
“A sudden violent jolt of it has been known to stop the victim’s watch, snap his suspenders and crack his glass eye right across.”
—Irvin S. Cobb (1876–1944)
“Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner. At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)