Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Caanan, Connecticut
I’m still thinking a lot about buildings and designs for living after reading Alain de Botton’s book (see yesterday’s posting below.) An article in the New York Times today highlights a legendary building, Philip Johnson’s Glass House, which will be open to the public later this month. Johnson is a larger than life legend in American architecture, that’s unquestioned. And though I am not usually moved by his buildings, I have had a long time affection for the Glass House. Sign me up, that’s a tour I want to take very soon.
The article includes comments about the house and Johnson from a variety of sources, including art luminaries like Jasper Johns and Frank Stella. A few of my favorite anecdotes are from Port Draper, the engineer who has been responsible for the maintenance of the building for the last 40 years. Here are two:
Johnson never complained. He always assumed that everything he built there was so oddball, there were bound to be problems. But everything was fun. If things didn’t turn out right he never said anything about it. Because that wouldn’t have been fun. Johnson came out to that house every weekend for only one reason: to have fun. And he was the most fun person I ever worked for.
One night a branch blew through one of the windows and then blew through another one. Johnson said, “I thought the end of the world had come!” It’s not tempered glass. It shattered. All over his bed. Rain’s pouring in. Glass all over the place. He’s sitting in his chair, blinking. The glass broke? That was funny. The roof leaked? That was funny.
Draper’s Johnson is so playful he makes the likes of Louis Kahn (and a lot of too serious artists I know personally, in fact very personally) seem dour, sour and not a lot of fun to be around. Maybe this way of reacting was an occasional thing with Johnson. Who knows. But I love these stories and will be taking a page from his book. Very seriously of course.
I remember Johnson from My Architect, the documentary by Nathaniel Kahn’s son—he seemed so generous about Kahn’s talent, a man who wasn’t too impressed by himself. I could easily see him laughing at his own work. To me, that’s charming. These stories about him are charming. Thanks for sharing.
He does come off charmingly in My Architect. And he is quoted as saying wonderful things about Gehry’s Bilbao as well. (He said, “You know it is one of the greatest buildings of our era because you get teary when you go inside,” which certainly was the case for me.) I’ve heard some other accounts about howdifficult it was to work with him–you know the usual dirt about too much ego and venality. So these vignettes were particularly pleasing to read.