While the main attrac­tion at Philip Johnson's New Canaan CT prop­erty is the Glass House itself, there are sev­eral ancil­lary struc­tures on the estate that he and his part­ner David Whit­ney used to enter­tain and house some of their art collection.

philip johnson's glass house

From above the main house, you can see in this pic­ture a por­tion of the Brick House, designed for guests. In oppo­si­tion to the trans­parency of the glass house, the brick house has only three round win­dows on its rear façade. Accord­ing to our guide, the Brick House was inun­dated by water shortly after the the prop­erty opened to the pub­lic, result­ing in exten­sive dam­age to the inte­rior and its fur­nish­ings. The restora­tion project has been under­way since 2008.

the brick house for guests on the glass house property

To the right, out of frame in the pic­ture above, is the swim­ming pool, seen below.

the glass house swim­ming pool

As we con­tinue across the upper path, we arrive at what appears to be an under­ground bunker, but is in fact the Paint­ing Gallery. John­son and Whit­ney were avid sup­port­ers of con­tem­po­rary artists and col­lected a vari­ety of works. Many of their larger pieces are housed in this masonry and earth berm facil­ity built in 1965. Within the three cir­cu­lar pods, cen­ter spin­dles allow for stor­age of 42 works, although only a few are viewed at one time.

entrance to the paint­ing gallery at the glass house

Within the entry of the Paint­ing Gallery, on the left is this Michael Heizer paint­ing of a sculp­ture to be made and  on the right, three pho­tographs by Lynn Davis.

michael heizer paint­ing in the glass house paint­ing gallery

Step­ping fur­ther into the three cir­cles, a few of the pieces on dis­play, the first two by Frank Stella:

frank stella multi-media work at glass house paint­ing gallery

frank stella multi-media work at glass house paint­ing gallery

Two more pieces, sorry I didn't catch the artist's name on these…

two large scale paint­ings at the glass house paint­ing gallery

From the paint­ing gallery, we next visit the Sculp­ture Gallery. The gallery fea­tures five lev­els and was designed to feel like a Greek vil­lage on the side of a vol­cano, where streets are stair­cases. The inte­rior play of light in this build­ing is stun­ning. Some of the most appeal­ing pieces (to me, anyway):

"Raft of the Medusa" by frank stella, aluminum

"two lovers on a bed" by george segal (right) and "the arch­bishop, the golfer and ralph" by john cham­ber­lain (left)

a por­tion of andrew lord's "large ves­sels", bis­muth clay and gold

tubu­lar steel rafters form the ceil­ing in the sculp­ture gallery

The tour ends with a walk to the top of the dri­ve­way and a brief look at Da Mon­sta, which John­son con­ceived as a future vis­i­tor cen­ter after his death. Sadly it proved to be too small for that task.

da mon­sta at glass house — this image via philipjohnsonglasshouse.org

Part of the joy of explor­ing this won­der­ful National Trust site on a beau­ti­ful day was spend­ing it with dear friends. Here we are hav­ing a well deserved rest in charm­ing New Canaan CT.

girls' day out was a blast!

Be sure to book a tour of Philip Johnson's Glass House on your next visit to Con­necti­cut. You are sure to enjoy this mod­ernist archi­tec­tural gem in its pris­tine setting.