These are pictures during the Tour of the Glass House, last monday.
The house is located in New Canaan, CT, about an hour out of NYC. These tours started in 2007 and have been sold out as soon as they start taking reservations. Luckily they added some extra tours this season and I got a ticket.
The Glass House has been one of the iconic residences of the 20th Century and is in the same popularity league as the Falling Waters or the Farnsworth House.
However this was designed by Johnson at the start of his career and his inexperience and lack of detail refinement is visible.
Nicolai Ourousoff writes in the NYTimes
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 site is beautifully landscaped, a lot of it with man made interventions. The different buildings built over the decades show the struggle and triumph of Johnson as the designer/owner.
This tour is a definite “must-do” for architects and architectural buffs.
