Urban Glass House - Philip Johnson

Who was Philip Johnson ?

Why did we choose the Urban Glass House?
What is Philip Johnson’s view of design? What was its evolution?
How is this vision linked to the glass house?
He was an American architect born in 1906, he died in 2005.
He studied at Harvard philosophy and history but began to concentrate on architecture after a trip to Europe.He analyzed the architecture international style in the pre-war period and experienced different ways of understanding the aims of architecture, from modernism to post-modernism.
He was really influenced at the beginning of its career by Mies van der Rohe with who he designed the Seagram Building in New York which is very simple and minimalist.

The urban glass house was the last project of Philip Johnson
It comes back to the idea of Glass House of Philip Johnson. He designed his house in Connecticut as a glass box.Therefore we thought that this building would be a good way of understanding Johnson’s work.
Philip Johnson studied the “international style architecture” in Europe in his early days (1930s) and he found out that (1) solidity was not guaranteed any more by mass and architecture was more and more based on volume and lightness (2) symmetry was rejected (3) along with decoration. It traduced both a minimalist spirit (“Less is More”) and modernism because buildings were trying to escape previous canons.
He based his first works on this view of design (e.g. Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany; Seagram Building)Then he moved (as everyone: cul-de-sac of modernism) to postmodernism notably with the AT&T building with a Chippendale Wardrobe top (Manhattan).
He opposes to the heavy metallic building appearance and prefers light and pure design with glass as a predilection raw material.
We will understand the links in more details later on with the analysis of the building.
Basically, the minimalist view is well represented by the absence of ornamentation, the purity of design and the simplicity of forms.
The Urban glass house reveals a modern design coupled with the idea of cubes with which you can play and build a pile such as with Lego®

To see all his work: http://www.pjar.com/projects_type_theaters.html (website of Philip Johnson/Alan Ritchie Architects)

Style and originality

Glass buildings and scrycrapers are usually office buildings or mall buildings, but this time it a residential building
Large pillars and finer pillars, the former is on what the building rests and the later has only aesthetical function.
The external walls are all windows
It contrasts with the neighboring buildings. Classical brick-made buildings:

It has a light and airy look

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Expression

As its name says, this building is a house. It is made to live in, in one of the 39 flats or in the penthouse.

But Philip Johnson and Alan Ritchie wanted to do more than a simple house. They highlight one characteristic of the house that is to be a shelter. People inside have a lot of lights thanks to these large glass windows but people outside cannot see inside, they only see the reflection of the facing buildings. So it gives the inhabitants an impression of protection in this busy city. Alan Ritchie says it well: “the outcome is a calm, ordered residential building that will provide a wonderful sense of refuge, a haven of quiet elegance and privacy within New York City."

Signification

When people are looking for a house, they want to like it and to be able to live well in it but they are also considering what the house says about them. Indeed a house represents who live in. So what does the urban glass house say about its inhabitants?

It says they are sophisticated. First because of the style of the urban glass house that is elegant thanks to its pure lines. This impression of elegance applies to the people who live in. Secondly, the inhabitants look sophisticated because they live in a famous building by a famous architect. So it means that they are cultivated, that they know the reference to the glass house of Philip Johnson and to the international style.

So as the building is elegant and the product of a well-known architect, its inhabitants seem sophisticated. But the Urban Glass House says another thing about them. It says they are wealthy. Indeed, they can afford to live there.

These two conclusions about the inhabitants of this building lead me to my last point. The Urban Glass House is a luxury building. Indeed, as it costs a lot to live there, it becomes a signal of privileges and thanks to its sophistication we can guess the connoisseurship of the inhabitants, as Chippendale’s work did for the Dumfries. So clearly even if everybody can admire it walking in the street, the building is for the elite. Indeed “the mass” cannot enjoy the main function of the building as the impossibility to see inside from the street symbolically suggests.