Imagine being inside a regular house, but instead of being enclosed on all sides with only a few windows, this house allows you to see nature from all sides.
The Glass House brings this imaginary scenario to life in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Tour the site each April through November.
Located on a nearly 50-acre site now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the house was the vision of American architect Phillip Johnson, who spent his 70-plus year career focusing on modern and postmodern design.
Built between 1949 and 2005, the house has no interior walls and features a kitchen, dining room, bathroom, bedroom and living room.
Focusing on aesthetics, Johnson believed that the only reason to create a building was to make the structure a work of art.
The property contains a number of Johnson’s buildings. Brick House, also completed in 1949, is a complete contrast to Glass House as it is almost entirely encased in brick. The structure is currently closed as a part of a renovation project, but visitors can see the exterior.
The two structures are linked by a grassy court.
Also on the property, Studio is a structure described by Johnson as an event, and houses 1,400 books on architecture from the 19th century to more modern times; and Da Monsta is more like a sculpture than a building. The exterior of the Painting Gallery is a grassy mound with a monumental stone entrance taking visitors to see Johnson’s collection of large-scale modern paintings.
Johnson died on the property in 2005 at the age of 98. He bequeathed his property to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1986, almost two decades before his death.
by Gina Gallucci-White