For 50 years Philip Johnson has designed stunning, unusual, showstopping buildings. And like all trailblazers, he has been targeted by the occasional stone-thrower.
Because he, quite literally, lives in the Glass House he designed and built in 1949, he should be uniquely at risk. But far from increasing Johnson’s vulnerability, this structure, perhaps the most simply elegant dwelling in the world, helps cement his reputation as one of the century’s most important architects.
It is a must-see for students of architecture and appreciators of fine design. So this writer was making a personal and professional odyssey as I arrived this fall at Johnson’s 43-acre estate to see the buildings and the grounds through his eyes.
Johnson had agreed to take me around, to give me the tour which someday will be given to the public. The National Trust for Historic Preservation recently announced that Johnson has bequeathed his estate and art collection to it.
At the trust’s request, he has prepared the property for public tours after his death by designing a visitors’ pavilion to serve as a gateway to the Glass House and the estate.
In “The Monster,” as the 89-year-old Johnson calls it, visitors will see a videotape of the iconoclastic architect at home. They will then be escorted around the grounds, to take in the physical evidence of a muse for the ages.
I arrived at the Glass House at noon, while the architect and a partner, David Fiore, were at lunch with several clients, representatives of the Dallas gay and lesbian congregation that will build the Cathedral of Hope. It will be reminiscent of Johnson’s Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif., which was done for the congregation of the Rev. Robert Schuler.
That meant the writer was alone, free to explore the grounds as an innocent, without crowds or even Johnson to intrude. Built in 1949 during Johnson’s association with architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Glass House is a one-bedroom weekend retreat, resting four red-brown brick courses above a manicured lawn. The house of plate glass and black steel is transparent.
You can see the house as you stand on Ponus Ridge Road and peer over a thick shoulder-high fieldstone wall that was there before Johnson bought the land.
From the road, the land slopes down past a groundskeeper’s house. Glass House sits on a grassy plane on the edge of a ravine rimmed by white granite bars.
Behind the house the hillside runs down to a glen with a kidney-shaped pond. Beyond, dense woods fill the land to the horizon.
Glass House is 32 feet wide and about twice that long. The floor is narrow red-brown brick and white mortar in a herringbone pattern. In spite of peering in from the outside, I did not feel like an intruder.
Arranged with Miesian furniture, including tan leather Barcelona chairs, chaise lounge and ottoman, the house has an informal mood enhanced by its openness.
A glass table with chromed legs sits on a beige rug. On it is a new book, “American Masterworks: The 20th Century House” by Kenneth Frampton and David Larkin. Glass House is on the cover.
Inside the front door is the famous brick cylinder containing a curving fireplace facing the living room. Its other half holds a green glass mosaic bathroom with a simple ring shower.
Stand on the lawn, with the bathroom door open, and you can see yourself in a mirror over the sink. Johnson said to me years ago this was the only house he knew where he could sit in the same chair and see both the sun and moon rise.
Johnson’s economy of form is exquisite. A kitchen bar with back-folding top at the front of the house looks into the dining-living area. The dining table is a gray marble slab on black metal legs with four black leather chairs. It is separated from the living room area by a potted fiddlehead ficus.
The bedroom is hidden behind clothes closets and a free-standing painting Johnson calls “my so-called Poussin.”
How do you hang a painting in a glass house with glass walls? Mount it on black steel legs.
The sleeping space consists of a bed without headboard. A pillow, up against the closet wall, looks out to the lawn. The natural fiber bed cover is pale, echoing a few silk scrims on tracks at windows to deflect the sun. There are a small glass-top round-bed table with black phone, lamp and a black leather ottoman. That is it.
The house has its opposite: the seemingly windowless brick guest house (it has giant portholes at rear) nearby on the front lawn. Both are linked by straight white gravel paths. Johnson and his companion, curator David Whitney, shuttle back and forth while on the estate.
I have been waiting and taking notes. Johnson and partner Fiore arrive from lunch with the Texas clients. Johnson’s other partner, Alan Ritchie, has said that the Dallas group, wanting a new church, saw the Crystal Cathedral and asked the firm of Philip Johnson, Ritchie & Fiore to design one for them.
Johnson extends a welcome.
“We have been looking for you all morning.”
As we all start the tour, Johnson says of his clients in a somewhat amazed tone, “They have big plans, and faith. It’s fun to work with them.”
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In the pond below the Glass House is a concrete pavilion reached by climbing a few boulders. Its low flat roof and concrete columns recall Johnson’s New York State Theater at Lincoln Center.
Nearby looms a Johnson cement-stepped sculpture, the “Lincoln Kirstein Tower,” named for his old friend from the American Ballet Theater. Johnson regularly climbed the 36-foot tower until his early 80s.
A woman from Dallas asks about the pavilion in the pond.
“It’s low in height because it gives you a sense of dominating the space, like the dwarfs’ rooms in Mantua’s ducal palace,” Johnson said. “That’s were I got the idea. I don’t use it any more. I can’t climb on. It’s like an island because life is more exciting on an island.”
We pass a white circular swimming pool with shimmering water, its white rim nestling in the grass.
He leads the way over an arching footbridge, pointing out his planked moon-viewing platform, as though we were in Japan.
Nearby is Johnson’s famed painting gallery, banked with high grassy sides. Triangular walls lead to the entrance. The approach comes from the ancient treasury at Mycenae, Greece.
We first visit a second gallery devoted to sculpture. It resembles a white-painted brick beach house. The roof is a trussed skylight.
A glass front window reveals a metal sculpture by Roy Lichtenstein. Inside, visitors are first aware of the skylight’s shadows and red brick floors leading to lower levels. We pass a long white horizontal sculpture by Michael Heizer.
On the lower level are geometric sculptures by Robert Morris and a green Jacob’s ladder by Bruce Nauman. There are a brass bed with plaster figures by George Segal and a crushed metal sculpture by John Chamberlain. Johnson’s interest in contemporary art goes back to his student days at Harvard.
He acknowledges he derives intellectual stimulation from challenging art. For me, it is an important discovery about Johnson. Besides sensible health habits and walking, art keeps Johnson vital and creative.
Inside the separate art gallery, a long vestibule lined with Jasper Johns drawings opens to an unusual room. Three large alcoves are filled with wall-size movable panels. They are arranged to display a few paintings at a time, Johnson’s choice. Lighting is indirect. The floor is white terrazzo.
On the panels are two large paintings by Julian Schnabel (his 15-foot-long bronze tree trunk is exhibited outside), two of four paintings by Andy Warhol (including Johnson’s multiple portrait; a double-portrait of Warhol’s mother, Julia Warhola; a double self-portrait of Warhol and a large “S & H Green Stamps”), and paintings by Stella and Eric Fishl.
“Someone has set this panel off-center,” Johnson calls as he straightens it from behind. We are surprised by the number of other paintings stored on hidden panels like pages in a book: perhaps 15 or more works each by Johns and Stella. Johnson says he was able to buy a Stella “Protractor” painting from a collector for only $25,000.
On the way to the airport the cabbie is surprised about future plans for the estate. He has driven occasional visitors back and forth for years.
“Do you think enough people will come?”
Having seen people crowding into buses in Tarrytown nearby to visit Kykuit, the Rockefeller house, I have no doubt. The place will be a mecca for those interested in modern and postmodern architecture. On videotape, Johnson will be leading tours. But it’s hard to see how it could top this preview.