The Glass House

About this place

Philip Johnson designed the Glass House as his own home, working out ideas about space, landscape, and the relationship between inside and outside that he had been developing for years. The result — a 56-foot by 32-foot box of black steel and plate glass — became one of the most debated houses of the twentieth century. The walls are entirely transparent. Inside, Johnson minimised furniture and removed all internal partitions save a low brick cylinder that contains the bathroom. The floor is brick, slightly raised from the surrounding ground. The house is most compelling at dusk, when artificial and natural light exchange and the landscape appears to be inside the building. Johnson lived here for over fifty years, adding buildings to the estate — a painting gallery, a sculpture gallery, a tower, a study — turning the 47-acre site into a kind of autobiography in architecture. It is now managed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and open for guided tours.