May 14, 2013
Architects know how to party. Seriously! In preparation for our A+ Gala on Thursday, we’ve looked at some notorious architecture bashes throughout history, and—let’s just say we have a lot to live up to! From a country happening with a special performance by the Velvet Underground to a Bauhaus party featuring a tinfoil slide, here are some historic architecture fetes we wish we could have attended!
April 11, 2013
Project: Glass/Wood House
Architect: Kengo Kuma and Associates
Location: New Canaan, Connecticut
In the 1950s, the small town of New Canaan became a sort of laboratory for architects to construct their novel modernist homes. Situated in a forest not far from Philip Johnson’s famed Glass House is Joe Black Leigh’s gorgeous glass and wood residence, which has been in dire need of renovation for decades. Kengo Kuma was commissioned to repair this home, as well as build a brand new wing that would evoke the same grandeur as the original structure. Kuma drew inspiration from the classic L-shaped plan, a prototype of Japanese architecture, and built a glass wing connected to the older home by a transparent hallway. Through isolating the two sections from each other, Kuma has preserved the house’s integrity and harmony with nature while creating a new space that is equally as awe-inspiring.
Read more about this project in the Architizer database.
Photos: Scott Frances
January 21, 2013
A model poses by Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao for Vogue China. Photo: Greg Kadel
Fashion designers have long looked to architecture for inspiration (see Givenchy’s latest collection in honor of Gio Ponti). So it makes sense that fashion magazines have scouted the world for the most iconic, majestic, interesting buildings to compliment the clothing in its pages. From model Lisa Fonssagrives hanging off the Eiffel Tower to Coco Rocha racing across the TWA Terminal’s campus in New York’s JFK Airport, here are some of our favorite architecture-fashion shoots. Click through to see our picks!
January 17, 2013
The Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright–designed museum in NYC. Photo: Martin y Zentol/STUA, S.A.
Architects! Only eight days left to submit your project—or projects—for the A+ Awards. We’ve documented some of the many reasons why you’d be crazy not to apply: amazing media exposure, getting your work seen by the industry’s leading developers and clients, and big-name partners Wall Street Journal, GOOD, Huffington Post, and Cool Hunting.
But just in case you need more convincing … our illustrious jury includes renowned curators from the world’s top art, design, and architectural institutions. We’re talking NYC’s Museum of Modern Art, the Philip Johnson Glass House, and the Guggenheim. Seriously. Click through to see the amazing cultural leaders who will be evaluating your work!
December 19, 2012
Don’t you ever wonder what the inside of that modern-looking house on your block looks like? Do you ever try to sneak a peek through their parlor windows when you walk by? Japanese architect Hiroshi Nakamura has made this design voyeurism possible — and less creepy — with his beautiful Optical Glass House. This abode along a busy street in Hiroshima is mostly hidden but boasts an incredible glass-encased garden along the facade. The garden is surrounded by 6,000 glass bricks, strung together with cable wires to create a glossy curtain. The glass is not entirely transparent, which creates an amazing mosaic effect for those attempting to look into the space. Read more!
April 2, 2012
What do architecture students do over spring break? If your answer contained the words ‘wet t-shirt’ or ‘mezcal worm,’ you are way off the mark. To give you some idea of how off, a few thesis students at UC Berkeley spent their down time creating architecture-themed cat memes and posting them on tumblr. So without further ado, here are your architecture LOLCATS…
June 28, 2011
In honor of an Architizer-sponsored Glass House Conversation this week, we’re giving away two passes to the hot ticket of the architectural summer season — Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Here’s the skinny: architect and Architizer co-founder Marc Kushner is leading the discussion over at Glass House Conversations throughout this week and he wants to know who to invite to an architecture pool party (this generation’s equivalent of Philip Johnson and David Whitney’s infamous salons, which hosted the likes of Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, and a much younger Bob Stern).
Head over there to weigh in with your (thoughtful) answer, then re-post your comment here, and you’ll be entered to win TWO FREE TICKETS to the Glass House. (UPDATE: Congrats to Joel Folliard, selected to win free tickets to the Glass House this season!) Details after the jump.
February 7, 2011
Starting next Tuesday, February 15, you can buy tickets to the designiest show in the world — a tour of Philip Johnson’s Glass House in Connecticut. Comprising eight buildings designed by the architect between 1949 and 1995, the New Canaan estate is a bona fide classic.
This year the season runs from May 1 to November 30, and the Glass House Foundation is offering a separate $150 tour every third Thursday of the month as well. Prominent figures in the world of architecture and design (think New Yorker critic Paul Goldberger and Charles Renfro of Diller Scofidio + Renfro) will shed new light on Johnson’s ethos and oeuvre.
After the jump, some exclusive photos from an Architizer field trip to the Glass House this past fall.
October 5, 2010
Philip Johnson’s Brick House is finally getting its turn in the spotlight.
One of the first buildings constructed on the architect’s weekend property in New Canaan, Connecticut, the Brick House sits just a few yards away from Johnson’s iconic attention grabber, the Glass House. From the outside, the Brick House is as unassuming as its name suggests, acting as a pendant to its more famous sibling and containing the mechanical equipment for both buildings in its basement.
Once a more private retreat for Johnson, his partner David Whitney, and their guests, no one used the Brick House in the years leading up to Johnson’s death in 2005. The small structure, locked up tight and sitting atop an underground stream, grew damper by the day and took on a life of its own in the form of mold, squirrels, and a few discriminating insects who set up residence in felt Gaetano Pesce chairs.
Now over sixty years old, the Brick House is receiving a much-needed renovation.
July 19, 2010
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?
