Diptych, dyad, dialectic: The relationship between the first pair of buildings Philip Johnson designed for his estate in New Canaan, Conn., has taxed the metaphorical imaginations of critics and architectural historians since the structures were completed, just months apart, in 1949.
On one side, the Glass House, transparent and entirely self-possessed, a work of modernist daring framed in steel and inspired, as Johnson was only too happy to admit, by the designs of his hero, the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
On the other, the Brick House, sometimes called the Guest House, hiding behind its inscrutable exterior the bedroom Johnson called his “sex room,” as well as the mechanical equipment serving its more glamorous relative 105 feet away.
Point, counterpoint.
You could write a book about the Freudian relationship between the two buildings, linked by a tunnel carrying water and power — a connection Johnson called the “umbilical cord.” And in fact somebody has: Adele Tutter, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, whose 2016 study “Dream House: An Intimate Portrait of the Philip Johnson Glass House” observes that the architect, fully exposed “in his transparent house, nevertheless remained ever-connected to a source of warmth and sustenance, hidden behind a forbidding and impenetrable facade, in a house of earthen brick.”
Persons:
Philip Johnson, Johnson, Ludwig Mies van der, Adele Tutter
Organizations:
Glass, Brick, Columbia University, Philip Johnson Glass
Locations:
New Canaan, Conn, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe