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Its uneven collection of architectural follies is an expression of a man more notable for a restless imagination and insatiable cultural appetites than for his gifts as an architect. Johnson would trudge across the field to his Studio in all seasons--he kept the grass uncut, because he liked the way the grassy hills rippled in the wind--and though the space is air-conditioned, a fireplace provides the only warmth in the winter. Like all of his buildings here, starting with Glass House, it feels as sculptural as much as a work of architecture.
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Additionally, Shigeru Ban recently developed an improved version of the temporary housing developed to help those affected by the Turkey-Syria earthquake, using an upgraded version of the paper tube system. The project was made in collaboration with the Glass House, a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, that in alignment with Hermès values is dedicated to the promotion of cultural and architectural preservation, artistry and craftsmanship. Join curators David A. Hanks, Juliet Kinchin, and Hilary Lewis for a discussion about the furniture inside the Glass House, much of which derives from Philip Johnson’s 1930 New York apartment designed by architect Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich. The Glass House is proud to announce an opportunity to hear from two of the world’s most preeminent architects, Norman Foster and Robert A.M. Stern. Beginning with their youthful relationship studying architecture at Yale in the early 1960s, these men have known each other since the very beginnings of their illustrious careers. This event will be held at the newly reopened Four Seasons Restaurant designed by architect Isay Weinfeld.
Architect's Square Foot Costbook
The floor is also made of red brick laid out in a herringbone pattern and is raised ten inches off of ground level. The only other divisions in the house besides the bathroom are discreetly done with low cabinets and bookshelves, making the house a single open room. This provides ventilation from all four sides flowing through the house as well as ample lighting. – All children must be at least ten years old to participate in tours and must be accompanied by an adult. We regret that car seat regulations regarding the use of car seats in our shuttle prevent us from transporting any infants and younger children to the site. – The Visitor Center is located across the street from the New Canaan train station.
Glass House Design Store
There is a pure glass tour that only visits the house and is an hour long. Aside from the unique and transparent walls of Johnson’s retreat, the house is also famously only one room, featuring a kitchen, living room, and sleeping area. The bathroom in the center of the house is the only area with enclosed and opaque walls. Although Johnson lived in the house during parts of his life, he eventually utilized the glass house for entertainment only.
Philip Johnson, who died at the age of 99 in 2005, was one of the 20th century's most successful and influential architects, working for 75 years on some of the world's foremost examples of modernist and postmodern buildings. Mies’s Barcelona furniture is placed in front of Nicolas Poussin’s The Burial of Phocion (1648–1649). In between the dining area and open kitchen stands Elie Nadelman’s sculpture Two Circus Women (1930). A closet behind the Poussin separates the living space from the sleeping area.
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Wolf Conservation Center
The floor plan of the Glass House reveals a fairly traditional living space. Although there are no walls, Philip Johnson referred to areas within the rectangular, loft-like space as “rooms.” There is a kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom, hearth area, bathroom, and an entrance area. Despite the very modern style of the house, the layout could easily be a colonial home, something Johnson noted. The Extended Tour affords time to visit Philip Johnson’s Studio, as well as The Glass House, Painting Gallery, Sculpture Gallery, outdoor sculpture, and Da Monsta. This tour will include the newly restored interior of the Brick House beginning on May 2, 2024.
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We are celebrating the 111th anniversary of Philip Johnson’s birth this Saturday, July 8th with the release of the new Modernist Paperweight designed by Werkstätte Carl Auböck Vienna exclusively for the Glass House Design Store. The Glass House welcome two distinguished names in architecture for cocktails, lunch, and a conversation about the state of architecture and the history of the Glass House as we commemorate its upcoming 70th anniversary. Johnson, who continued to design into the early 21st century, received a number of awards, including the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal (1978) and the first Pritzker Architecture Prize (1979). Philip Johnson (born July 8, 1906, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.—died January 25, 2005, New Canaan, Connecticut) was an American architect and critic known both for his promotion of the International Style and, later, for his role in defining postmodernist architecture.
Participants must be able to climb hills of moderate grade and stand for extended lengths of time. We regret that visitors using wheelchairs or scooters are not permitted on this tour. Johnson emphasized what he called “procession.” Different vistas, follies, buildings, and artworks, such as the large concrete sculpture by Donald Judd towards the end of the driveway, are slowly revealed while walking through the property.
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Philip Johnson’s Glass House, built atop a dramatic hill on a rolling 47-acre estate in New Canaan, Connecticut, is a piece of architecture famous the world over not for what it includes, but for what it leaves out. The dwelling’s transparency and ruthless economy are meant to challenge nearly every conventional definition of domesticity. The house, which ushered the International Style into residential American architecture, is iconic because of its innovative use of materials and its seamless integration into the landscape. In finding that little knoll, I was in the middle of the woods in the middle of the winter and I almost didn’t find it. I found a great oak tree and I hung a whole design on the oak tree and the knoll because this place. Don’t forget, it is more of a landscape park than it is a work of architecture, anyhow.
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 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 painting, attributed to Poussin, the Burial of Phocion (1648), is displayed on an easel in the living area as if to connect the house to the picturesque landscape outside. Athenian statesman convicted of treason for his relations with a foreign dictator. She considers Johnson’s passion for Poussin to stem from this choice of Phocion as the subject of the painting. Yet it is also easy to see why Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a pillar of early Modernism and Johnson’s mentor, stormed out in a huff when he saw it. The house was famously influenced by Mies’s Farnsworth House, which was designed before Johnson’s Glass House but built, in Illinois, several years later, leaving the impression that the student had leapfrogged over his master. More important, Johnson’s vision lacked the intellectual rigor and exquisite detailing that were so critical to Mies’s genius.
Join architect Fred Noyes at New Canaan Library for a free lecture about his childhood home, the Noyes House (1954) in New Canaan. Designed by Eliot Noyes and included on the National Register of Historic Places, the house’s unique composition – two enclosures for public and private functions connected by an open air courtyard – remains highly provocative. Fred will analyze the intent and design of the house in comparison to the Glass House (1949), designed by Philip Johnson. Each has exerted a global influence on buildings as well as the urban environment overall.
Its innovative use of glass and seamless integration into the landscape has made it one of the most iconic buildings in American residential architecture. The house, measuring 55 feet by 33 feet and covering 1,815 square feet, sits on a promontory overlooking a pond and the woods beyond, invisible from the road. The most recently completed building on the estate, located right near the entrance gate and finished in 1995, is called Da Monsta, which looks extremely Frank Gehry-ish but which Johnson maintains was actually a homage to his friend Frank Stella's design for a museum in Dresden. Either way, the "structured warp" of the building certainly makes an impression, and the space serves as a video viewing room and, not trivially, houses the estate's only public bathroom. According to Henry Urbach, director of the Glass House (now operated as a historic house museum by the National Trust for Historic Preservation), that rich sense of contradiction, even paradox, is part of the structure’s continuing appeal.
Johnson’s skyscrapers can be seen in the skylines of cities, including New York, Houston, and Chicago. Each of the four exterior walls of the Glass House is punctuated by a centrally located glass door that opens onto the landscape, providing breathtaking views and creating a seamless connection between the interior and exterior spaces. There has always been a suspicion that so complex a figure as Johnson demands yet a different kind of analytical approach to this work. She admits the risk of seating the architecture on the couch as a substitute for its author, but for her, the house is a repository packed with architectural signs of envy, a sense of inadequacy, deferral, and the burial of memory.
Tours of the Glass House are available in April through December and include self-guided tours and expanded educational opportunities for local communities; advance reservations are required. The guest house, connected to the Glass House with a stone path that lays over the expansive lawn immediately surrounding it, is a heavy brick structure, contrasting the extreme lightness and transparency expressed in the Glass House. A 1951 New York Times article regarding the Hodgson House mentions that Johnson’s next project would be a “pink palace with a hanging fireplace,” most certainly referring to the Ball House. Dating back to 1985, Ban’s affinity for paper tubes has now evolved into a pioneering exploration of the material’s construction. In fact, the architect has used paper tubes in installations, buildings, and disaster relief projects. Notable among these is the 79-foot-tall Cardboard Cathedral erected in 2013, which has become a permanent landmark.
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