LUDWIG v PHILIP

The Glass House is a one story, 1800 square foot glass and steel building. A rectangular prism, 32 feet by 56 feet in plan with a height of 10 ½ feet. Walls consist entirely of 18-feet- wide floor-to-ceiling single plate-glass sheets, secured between black painted steel piers. Stock H-beams anchored the glass with angle brackets. An off-center cylindrical mass of brick, which has a fireplace on one side and the entrance to the bathroom inside the cylinder on the other protrudes though the flat roof. The foundation is a brick platform with slab for frost footing. Like the floor of the house, which is laid in a herringbone pattern, the cylinder is constructed of glazed brick in various shades of deep reds and browns with lighter colored flecks. Otherwise, the interior is completely open, with low cabinets and bookshelves serving as area dividers. The other major division in the living area, aside from the brick cylinder, is the long line of 42-inch high cabinets which contain the kitchen, Two panels on top of this unit, when opened and folded back, provide a black linoleum work surface. The sink, two refrigerators, a stove are all included in the one unit, besides a liquor cabinet which opens into the living area. Heating runs within the floor and ceiling.

56 feet

32 feet

EQEQ EQ

In The Philip Johnson Tapes, Johnson recounts that in the mid-1950s, he invited Mies, with whom he was collaborating on the Seagram Building, for an overnight visit. At 10:30 in the evening, Mies emerged from the nearby guesthouse and told his host that he wanted to leave. Johnson thought he was joking. “I don’t think you understood,” responded Mies. “I’m not staying in this house another minute, and you’ve got to find me a place to stay.” What had upset the German architect? “I just think he felt that my bad copy of his work was extremely unpleasant,” Johnson later speculated. Whether or not it is a bad copy, it is certainly an unfaithful one. The Glass House uses spare ‘Miesian’ materials—steel I-beams painted black—but in a very un-Miesian manner. For example, from a distance, the steel frame appears to sit on the brick base, but this is contradicted by the way that the columns slide by the brick at the corners, a solution that lacks both elegance and structural logic.

Witold Rybczynski

In The Philip Johnson Tapes, Johnson recounts that in the mid-1950s, he invited Mies, with whom he was collaborating on the Seagram Building, for an overnight visit. At 10:30 in the evening, Mies emerged from the nearby guesthouse and told his host that he wanted to leave. Johnson thought he was joking. “I don’t think you understood,” responded Mies. “I’m not staying in this house another minute, and you’ve got to find me a place to stay.” What had upset the German architect? “I just think he felt that my bad copy of his work was extremely unpleasant,” Johnson later speculated. Whether or not it is a bad copy, it is certainly an unfaithful one. The Glass House uses spare ‘Miesian’ materials—steel I-beams painted black—but in a very un-Miesian manner. For example, from a distance, the steel frame appears to sit on the brick base, but this is contradicted by the way that the columns slide by the brick at the corners, a solution that lacks both elegance and structural logic.

Witold Rybczynski

In The Philip Johnson Tapes, Johnson recounts that in the mid-1950s, he invited Mies, with whom he was collaborating on the Seagram Building, for an overnight visit. At 10:30 in the evening, Mies emerged from the nearby guesthouse and told his host that he wanted to leave. Johnson thought he was joking. “I don’t think you understood,” responded Mies. “I’m not staying in this house another minute, and you’ve got to find me a place to stay.” What had upset the German architect? “I just think he felt that my bad copy of his work was extremely unpleasant,” Johnson later speculated. Whether or not it is a bad copy, it is certainly an unfaithful one. The Glass House uses spare ‘Miesian’ materials—steel I-beams painted black—but in a very un-Miesian manner. For example, from a distance, the steel frame appears to sit on the brick base, but this is contradicted by the way that the columns slide by the brick at the corners, a solution that lacks both elegance and structural logic.

Witold Rybczynski

In The Philip Johnson Tapes, Johnson recounts that in the mid-1950s, he invited Mies, with whom he was collaborating on the Seagram Building, for an overnight visit. At 10:30 in the evening, Mies emerged from the nearby guesthouse and told his host that he wanted to leave. Johnson thought he was joking. “I don’t think you understood,” responded Mies. “I’m not staying in this house another minute, and you’ve got to find me a place to stay.” What had upset the German architect? “I just think he felt that my bad copy of his work was extremely unpleasant,” Johnson later speculated. Whether or not it is a bad copy, it is certainly an unfaithful one. The Glass House uses spare ‘Miesian’ materials—steel I-beams painted black—but in a very un-Miesian manner. For example, from a distance, the steel frame appears to sit on the brick base, but this is contradicted by the way that the columns slide by the brick at the corners, a solution that lacks both elegance and structural logic.

Witold Rybczynski