Glass House Case Study: Plan, Site and the Brick House (Philip Johnson)

The Glass House is the weekend house Philip Johnson designed for himself in New Canaan, Connecticut, between 1945 and 1948 and completed in 1949: a single glass room in a black steel frame, about 16.8 x 10.1 m (55 x 33 ft), with a brick cylinder for the bathroom and hearth. It was never meant to stand alone. Across a grass court sits its opposite, the closed Brick House, and around both lies a landscape Johnson kept shaping for nearly fifty years.

The brief and the client

The client was the architect. According to the National Historic Landmark nomination (1997), he co-wrote The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 (1932) with Henry-Russell Hitchcock while directing the architecture department at the Museum of Modern Art, then trained at Harvard under Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, finishing in 1943.

The brief was a weekend house in the country. With few changes, the nomination notes, it served as his main home for nearly five decades, alongside a New York apartment. The Glass House says he lived there from 1949 until his death in 2005. In 1986 he arranged for the estate to pass to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

One fact shapes everything that follows. In 1947 Johnson wrote the catalogue for the Museum of Modern Art's Mies van der Rohe exhibition, which shows the model of Mies's Farnsworth house project. He describes the type there as a "floating self-contained cage". He knew the glass house he would answer before he built his own.

Glass House site plan: the site as the real plan

Johnson put it plainly on a 1991 walk around the grounds, quoted by The Glass House: "The Glass House started because of the land that was there." He found a small knoll in the woods, on land he began buying in late 1945 (the Cultural Landscape Foundation dates the assembly from 1946). An early scheme was a brick and stone house with Romanesque arches. Because the knoll was too small, he took half of the house and set it back against the hill. That half became the Brick House.

The NHL nomination describes the setting. From Ponus Ridge Road the land slopes gently down to a bluff, then drops steeply to a pond and woods on the west. The Glass House sits on the edge of that bluff. The Brick House stands about 24 m (80 ft) to the southeast. Crushed stone paths join them across a lawn, and a low granite curb marks the lawn's outer edge.

The landscape was worked as hard as the buildings. The Glass House landscape page says Johnson used the old 18th and 19th century stone walls, barn foundations and mature trees as the "organizing principle", and cleared second-growth forest to open views. He said of architecture and landscape: "to me, it's one art." A serpentine driveway followed in 1964, according to the Cultural Landscape Foundation. The nomination explains its effect: trees hide the houses until you come on them at an oblique angle, the open box and the closed box together.

For the real site plan, see the site map in the NHL nomination on NPGallery, or Johnson's own article "House at New Canaan, Connecticut" in Architectural Review, September 1950, pages 152 to 159.

Concept: one room, one pair, many sources

The idea is a single room with no inside walls. Everything private is pushed out: into the brick cylinder for the bathroom, and into the Brick House for guests and machinery. Paul Goldberger, quoted by the Glass House, calls the Brick House the counterpoint: one building public and transparent, the other private and closed.

Johnson was open about his debts. On the official site he says of Mies and himself, "Mies' was, of course, primary and mine was an adoption from the master." The nomination lists the other sources he cited: Ledoux, Schinkel, Choisy, Malevich and Le Corbusier. The house is often presented as pure modernism; its author described a collage of history.

Glass House floor plan and zoning

According to The Glass House, each of the four walls has a glass door at its centre. Inside is one space that Johnson still divided into "rooms": kitchen, dining, living, bedroom, hearth, bathroom and entrance. Nothing reaches the ceiling except the brick cylinder, which the NHL nomination describes as off-centre, with the fireplace on one side and the bathroom entrance on the other.

The zones are set out by furniture and joinery:

• Living area: a rug and a group of seating around a low table, most of it Mies van der Rohe furniture from Johnson's 1930 New York apartment.
• Bedroom: separated from the living area by built-in storage cabinets in walnut veneer.
• Kitchen: one long run of cabinets 42 in (about 1.07 m) high holding sink, two refrigerators, stove and storage, with fold-back panels that open into a worktop, per the nomination.

The Brick House: the other half of the plan

The Glass House says both buildings are 55 ft long and the Brick House is half as deep; the NHL nomination gives 18 x 52 ft (about 5.5 x 15.8 m). Its walls are brick in Flemish bond, broken only by a single entrance on the west side, towards the court, and three large round windows on the back, plus skylights. It first held three equal guest rooms. In 1953 Johnson remodelled the interior into a bedroom and a reading room joined by a narrow skylit corridor. He gave the bedroom low white vaults based on the breakfast room at Sir John Soane's house in London and lined it with Fortuny fabric. It also held, in Johnson's words in 1991, "the necessaries and the heating" for both houses.

Glass House section and structure

The NHL nomination records:

• Frame: black-painted steel piers, with stock H-beams holding the glass by angle brackets.
• Walls: floor-to-ceiling plate glass on all four sides.
• Foundation and floor: a brick platform with a slab for frost footing, and a floor of brick laid in herringbone.
• Height: 10.5 ft (about 3.2 m), with the brick cylinder rising through the flat roof.

The useful comparison is with Farnsworth. The nomination quotes Jeffrey Kipnis summing up Kenneth Frampton's reading: "Where Mies is always tectonic, Johnson is invariably scenographic." At New Canaan the roof stops at the corner columns, and the steel is painted black and set flush with the glass, so the house reads as a closed, finite box. At Farnsworth the roof cantilevers past the columns, the steel is painted white and stands clear of the glass, and space seems to slide past the frame. The National Park Service adds that Mies set the Farnsworth floor about 5 ft (1.5 m) above grade on the Fox River floodplain, while Johnson's floor sits almost on the lawn. Our Farnsworth House case study covers that building.

The nomination calls the Glass House a variation on Mies's 1947 Farnsworth design; the NPS dates Farnsworth's construction to 1950 to 1951. The follower's house was finished first.

Glass House materials used

The nomination lists:

• Steel: the frame, painted black.
• Glass: plate glass for all four walls.
• Brick: glazed brick in deep reds and browns for both the floor and the cylinder.
• Granite: the steps and the lawn curb.

Inside, the ceiling was three-coat plaster and the cabinets walnut. The Brick House uses the same brick on the outside.

Light, climate and services

New Canaan has cold winters. Three points are documented:

• Ventilation: with a door in each wall, the nomination notes, cooking smells clear almost at once.
• Heating: a 2026 local history column on NewCanaanite.com describes radiant hot-water heating in the floor plus the fireplace, says the house "could be a bit drafty", and quotes Johnson: "Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating."
• Ceiling: the National Trust's 2018 report on the ceiling found radiant heating tubing in the plaster ceiling as well, shut off about two decades before Johnson died.

There is no overhang: the mature trees around the bluff do the shading that eaves would do elsewhere.

The services sit in the Brick House. The National Trust's 2024 account of its restoration describes a hidden mechanical room under it that serves both buildings, connected to the Glass House by an underground tunnel. The glass box stays free of plant, ducts and tanks.

Reception, problems and repairs

The reaction was immediate. The NHL nomination says every major critic felt obliged to visit, there were reportedly traffic jams on Ponus Ridge Road, and the house appeared in the journals and in Life. Johnson called the whole estate "the diary of an eccentric architect". Goldberger, quoted there, argued that the view through the glass is itself an arranged landscape: "the ironic illusion is superb". The authors also suggest Mies may have been partly right to see the house as a caricature of his idea rather than a homage.

The buildings have needed real work:

• Glass House ceiling (2017): the plaster ceiling sagged about two inches on the west side and jammed a door. It turned out to contain asbestos, and its old copper heating tubing was too heavy for it. The whole ceiling was replaced in December 2017, according to the National Trust.
• Brick House water: a drain from a water feature on the Glass House lawn had been piped into the Brick House basement and picked up groundwater on the way, according to the National Trust (2024). Plaster damage and mold followed, and the house closed: in 2007 according to that article, in 2008 according to the Glass House restoration page.
• Brick House repair: a US$1.8 million restoration added footing drains, an uphill drainage barrier and new waterproofing, replaced the roof, skylights and radiant floors, and reproduced the porthole windows in mahogany. It reopened on 30 April 2024.

What designers in India can take from it

These are our reading, not lessons the sources draw.

1. Let the site split the programme. Johnson moved half the house off a knoll that was too small, and the split became the design. On sloping, farmhouse or hill sites, two or three smaller blocks around a court often sit better than one large footprint, and the court gives shade and air movement.
2. Do not copy the all-glass wall in Indian sun. The Glass House works in a temperate climate under a deep tree canopy, and it was still draughty; Johnson joked about the heating bill. In most of India the problem is heat gain, so treat full-height glass as something to shade: deep overhangs, verandahs, jaalis or trees on the east and west. Our guide to building materials by climate and region covers what suits each zone.
3. Put the servant spaces in a solid block, and drain it first. Keeping plant and guests out of the main room is easy to borrow for pumps, inverters, storage and staff rooms. But any room below ground on a slope needs footing drains and waterproofing designed first, and surface drains must never run into it. See our guide to waterproofing by climate.
4. Zone with joinery, but check the kitchen. A cabinet and a waist-high counter do the work of walls, which suits small flats. But Johnson's open kitchen relied on air from four doors; an Indian kitchen with tadka and frying needs real exhaust, or a glass partition, before it opens to the living room.

To document a building for studio, use our case study guide. For thesis ideas, see our B.Arch thesis topics by typology.

Visiting the Glass House

The official visit page sets the rules:

• Tickets: required; the site is open only by tour, and tours often sell out.
• Starting point: all tours start at the Visitor Center and Design Store, 199 Elm Street, New Canaan, across the street from the New Canaan station on the Metro-North New Haven line.
• Season: for 2026, 16 April to 14 December. Closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
• Tours: the one-hour tour covers the Glass House and Brick House; longer tours add the galleries and studio. Prices are on the page.

Want to see how architects in India are working with courts, brick and glass today? Explore projects by MOA members.

FAQ

Where is Philip Johnson's Glass House located?

At 798-856 Ponus Ridge Road, New Canaan, Connecticut, USA. Visits start at the Visitor Center at 199 Elm Street in New Canaan, opposite the train station.

When was the Glass House built?

Johnson designed it between 1945 and 1948 and completed it in 1949. The Brick House was finished a few months earlier. Later buildings on the estate date from 1955 to 1995.

What are the Glass House dimensions and square footage?

The Glass House gives 55 x 33 ft and 1,815 sq ft (about 169 sq m). The 1997 NHL nomination gives 32 x 56 ft and a height of 10.5 ft (about 3.2 m).

What materials was the Glass House built with?

A black-painted steel frame, plate glass on all four sides, a herringbone brick floor on a brick platform and concrete foundation, a brick cylinder for the bathroom and fireplace, granite steps, a plaster ceiling and walnut cabinets.

Is the Glass House a copy of the Farnsworth House?

Johnson called his house "an adoption" from Mies, whose Farnsworth design he had shown at MoMA in 1947. The two differ in how they use the frame. Johnson's black steel is flush with the glass and the roof stops at the corners. Mies's white steel stands outside the glass and the roof runs past it. The Glass House was also finished first, in 1949.

Sources

• National Park Service: National Historic Landmark nomination, Philip Johnson's Glass House (1997) (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• National Park Service NPGallery: Philip Johnson's Glass House, asset record 97000341 (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• The Glass House: The Glass House (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• The Glass House: Brick House (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• The Glass House: Landscape (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• The Glass House: Brick House Restoration (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• The Glass House: Visit (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• National Trust for Historic Preservation: Public Lives and Private Spaces: Restoring Philip Johnson's Brick House, Priya Chhaya, 2 May 2024 (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• National Trust for Historic Preservation: Fixing the Ceiling at Philip Johnson's Glass House, Meghan White, 22 May 2018 (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• The Museum of Modern Art: Mies van der Rohe, by Philip C. Johnson (1947 exhibition catalogue) (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• National Park Service: The Farnsworth House (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• The Cultural Landscape Foundation: Philip Johnson Glass House (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• NewCanaanite.com: New Canaan There and Then: Philip Johnson and Country Living in New Canaan, Nick Williams, April 2026 (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Wikimedia Commons: Freedom of panorama, United States entry, checked for the photos used (accessed 3 Nov 2026)