The Glass House or Johnson house, built in 1949 in New Canaan, Connecticut, was designed by Philip Johnson as his own residence and is a masterpiece in the use of glass. It was an important and influential project for Johnson and his associate Richard Foster, and for modern architecture. The building is an essay in minimal structure, geometry, proportion, and the effects of transparency and reflection.
The house is mostly hidden from the public view. It is located behind a stone wall at the edge of a crest in Johnson’s estate overlooking a pond. It is one of eleven buildings that Johnson either built or refined on his rambling 47-acre estate. The exterior sides are glass and charcoal-painted steel; the brick floor is about 10 inches above the ground. The interior is open with the space divided by low walnut cabinets; a brick cylinder contains the bathroom and is the only object to reach floor to ceiling. The house builds on ideas of German architects from the 1920s ("Glasarchitektur"). In a house of glass, the views of the landscape are its real “walls”. The house is often compared to Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House.
