Today the Philip Johnson Glass House, a National Trust for Historic Preservation site, officially launches Glass House Conversations, a website designed in conjunction with the School of Visual Arts. (Log on this week and you’ll find Alice Rawsthorn, the design critic of the International Herald Tribune, leading a discussion about the future of design.)

What does this kind of conversation have to do with preservation? The answer lies in the spirit of the Glass House itself.

Visiting the Glass House, architect Philip Johnson’s weekend retreat in New Canaan, Connecticut, is an engaging experience. Moving from the cluster of white pines that form a fragrant outdoor foyer, through the pathways that artfully connect the ten structures on the site, and into the neatly arranged interior of the main house, one realizes that this was not a retreat in the strictest sense–Philip Johnson designed the entire property to be viewed and enjoyed by others. In an interview with Charlie Rose that took place close to his ninetieth birthday, Johnson corroborated that sentiment, saying, “I designed the Glass House to make people feel good.”

If this hospitable atmosphere continues to make an impression even though Johnson and his partner David Whitney are gone (they both died in 2005), one can only imagine what the Glass House must have been like in its heyday. Johnson completed the first buildings, the Glass House and its counterpart the Brick House, in 1949, and he met Whitney in 1960. The duo was constantly inviting friends, like Andy Warhol and Frank Stella, and lucky students from Johnson’s classes at Yale (a young Robert A.M. Stern) to drop by. They hosted spectacular events, like a “Country Happening” in 1967, a benefit for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company that featured a live performance by the Velvet Underground and dancing on the lawn. The engaging conversations that transpired in the festive atmosphere of the Glass House led architectural historian Vincent Scully, another pal of Johnson, to dub it “the longest-running salon in America.”

But can a salon that has lost its hosts keep on running?

Guests at a benefit for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, including (at right) Alfred H. Barr, Jr., founding director of the Museum of Modern Art, taken by the hosts’ private photographer and published in Vogue Magazine’s August 1, 1967 issue.

Christy MacLear, Executive Director of the Glass House, and Dorothy Dunn, the site’s former Director of Visitor Experience, thought so, and Johnson, who once made sure his birthday bash at the Glass House went on even though he was in the hospital recovering from emergency surgery, would almost certainly agree. With the sponsorship of Oldcastle Glass (now Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope), the series “Glass House Conversations” began in 2008, bringing together small groups of influencers to wine and dine at the Glass House while riffing on a larger theme like “Attention Span,” “Breaking the Rules” or “Trophy.”

Know that game where you imagine all the amazing people you’d invite to an imaginary dinner party? This was the real thing. The twelve-person events included MIT Media Lab leader turned RISD director John Maeda, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, and Public Architecture founders John Peterson and John Cary, among over a hundred others.

Merce Cunningham on the lawn, courtesy of the New York Public Library (L). Benefit program, courtesy of the Glass House (R).

The series carried into 2009 when Dunn began to wonder if these kinds of conversations could translate into a digital medium and thereby involve a broader (and younger) set of participants. She began talking to Liz Danzico, the chair of the new Interaction Design program at the School of Visual Arts, and with program mentor Jason Santa Maria, they developed a graduate student course called “Continuing the Conversation.” Six students (Clint Beharry, Derek Chan, Kristin Graefe, Katie Koch, Russell Maschmeyer, and Eric St. Onge) were charged with creating an online presence that captured the spirit of the Glass House Conversation series.

Nine months later, the result is Glass House Conversations, a site whose simple, welcoming design encourages virtual conversation and features unpublished archival material from the 2008-2009 series.

Screenshot of the Glass House Conversations website with moderation by graphic designer Michael Beirut.

Each week on the site a moderator will be invited to host a question or provocation for an online audience (right now, anyone can register). In addition to the original Glass House Conversations series, moderators will also be drawn from the participants of Modern Views, the latest project of the Glass House and a new Trust property, the Farnsworth House in Illinois, the famous glass home of Dr. Edith Farnsworth designed by Mies van der Rohe.

One hundred architects, artists and designers (David Adjaye, Constantin Boym, and Sarah Morris, to name a few) were invited to donate a piece of work inspired by the Glass House, the Farnsworth House or modernism itself. In the fall the collected works will be published in a book by Assouline, and the pieces sold at auction with proceeds going toward preservation projects at the Glass House and the Farnsworth House.

Glass House, photo by Robin Hill courtesy of Glass House.

The design of the two glass houses reflect the kind of conversation Johnson liked to have in everything he did (Mies had Farnsworth on paper first and Johnson always admitted being inspired by it). It’s also evidenced by the diversity of the buildings Johnson designed for the Glass House property, which not only incorporate historical references but also reflect new directions in architecture over the course of fifty years. Johnson always wanted to be right in the middle of the latest thing. An online conversation? Johnson will certainly be present, even if only in spirit.

by Molly Heintz

posted in General

tagged andy warhol, domestic architecture, farnsworth house, frank stella, Glass House, historic preservation, merce cunningham, mies van der rohe, philip johnson, robert a.m. stern, velvet underground, vincent scully

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