The Glass House or Johnson House in New Canaan, Connecticut built in 1948–49 as a weekend home along with a gallery, studio, guest house and landscaped garden (landscaped by David Whitney).
After curating a MOMA exhibit of Mies van der Rohe work in 1947, Johnson was influenced to design and build his own glass house. The exhibit did include a model of the Farnsworth House, though steel was not used. At the time New Canaan was a hot bed of architectural activity, with Harvard launching its Architectural Design School under Bauhaus emigre Walter Gropius. New Canaan’s attraction was in being just 55 miles north of New York City, 40 miles from Yale University and 160 miles south of Harvard, allowing Marcel Breuer and other members of the ‘Harvard 5’ to build significant houses in the area.
This is a luxurious art project of a house much different from California’s Case Study House projects, which had a stated aim of being affordable and an example for the housing industry. The Johnson House sits in acres of landscaped gardens and is very much a society weekend house as opposed to attending to the daily needs of a regular middle class family.
Date of visit June 2013
1 hour visit from $25.00 (Correct as of October, 2019)
The Glass House, 199 Elm St, New Canaan, CT 06840
