glass house

Lauren and I went to Philip Johnson's glass house in new canaan on saturday. This was his permanent residence until he died in 2005 (he was 98). The most interesting part of the complex was probably the landscape design. It was reminiscent of the gardens at Stourhead, or some something designed by Capability Brown. In the photo above, the topography drops quickly to my left and there is a long open field that is maintained so as to let a few seemingly random trees grow tall with long grass or shrubs surrounding them. There is also a oblong pond with a renaissance-style pavilion projecting into its center. The pavilion is built at 3/4 scale so as to appear further away than it actually is.



Philip Johnson also had a fairly impressive art collection. His painting gallery was dug into a hill, recalling some sort of egyptian burial site. Inside were three rotating pinwheels of art. Essentially three wheel hubs contained many rotatable walls (or spokes in plan) that each contained different paintings. We walked around the wheels to see the paintings because the machine that rotates the walls was not turned on. The photograph below was taken from within one of the wheels.

I suppose the thing I really took away from visiting this estate was all the clear references to historic architectural forms and ideologies. Philip Johnson has always seemed like a great architect to me not because he was particularly innovative (most of his buildings actually seem eerily similar to other pre-existing buildings, see Mies' Farnsworth House), but because he could pull many styles and ideas together effectively and functionally. He was a also a bit of a wealthy socialite, spending his youth touring Europe (during the depression) and befriending many iconic artists later in life. He also introduced Louis Kahn to his long-time engineer.

Lauren and I proceeded to tour the surrounding suburbs of New Canaan (noted for its many mid-century modernist houses) on our own and exploring the extremely yuppy town. I accompanied Lauren into the J. Crew, thinking I would be hilariously out of place. Unfortunately, as you can see in the photo, that was not the case.

For those of you who don't know, I'm spending the summer working for Elijah Huge in Middletown. He's got three small-ish residential projects in the works and needs to get them mostly completed by the end of the summer when he is moving to California. I've been working on a bunch of interesting aspects of these projects, so I'll post some documentation sometime soon. I'm currently finishing the most intricate and utilitarian model I've ever made.

Post summer I don't have much of a concrete plan. Possible 3 month stint in London.

The more I think about it the more I want to make things similar to what droog and humans since 1982 make. Lofty hopes, I know, but thats why I have such clever and capable friends. Paying the bills, however, is not something I'm prepared to think about. All I know is I won't be very happy without studio space and lots of tools. Austin!

Alright, apologies for covering so many bases on this my inaugural post. I'll reel it in a bit in the future. one love,
-Hunt