Philip Johnson Glass House
The Magnificent Landscape
The Glass House is set on a 47-acre picturesque landscape of rolling lawns and maple trees. (Photo by Carol M. Highsmith) Learn More
Philip Johnson's Glass House, a National Trust Historic Site
For fifty years, Johnson used this country estate to experiment with the relationships between art, architecture and landscape. (Photo by Carol M. Highsmith) Learn More
The Philip Johnson Glass House was a remarkable achievement when it was completed in 1949. Inspired by Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House (Ill.), its exterior walls are of glass with no interior walls, a radical departure from houses of the time. It began a fifty-year odyssey of architectural experimentation in forms, materials, and ideas through the addition of many new "pavilions"—Guest House, Lake Pavilion, Painting Gallery, Sculpture Gallery, Ghost House, Studio, and Visitors Pavilion—and the methodical sculpting of the surrounding forty-acre landscape.
Tickets are available online at www.philipjohnsonglasshouse.org.
Philip Johnson Glass House is owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Modern Homes Survey
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, through the Glass House, partnered with the New Canaan Historical Society to leverage an earlier study done by DoCoMoMo’s Northeast chapter to expand/ enhance, publish and put on-line the survey of the remaining 91 modern homes in New Canaan. The New Canaan Mid-Century Modern Houses Survey was designed to provide a more complete study of Modern residences in New Canaan and serve as a national model for surveys of other mid-century houses in the United States. Many of the houses are currently under threat of demolition due to extreme development pressure and a lack of awareness of their significance.
Get Connected
