The Glass House Announces Conversations in Context 2013

The Glass House is pleased to announce the 2013 season of Conversations in Context, inviting leaders from creative fields to reflect on the site’s past, present, and future, and to contribute their perspectives on the Glass House and its significance to contemporary debates.

Conversations in Context take place select Thursday evenings from 5:30-8:00pm. Space is limited and advance reservations are highly recommended. Tickets are available now!

2013 Conversations in Context Schedule of Hosts

May 2 – Murray Moss, Founder, Moss + Francois DeMenil, Founder, FdM: Arch

June 6 – Elizabeth Diller, Founding Principal, Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Professor of Architecture, Princeton University

July 18 – Peter Eisenman, Founder + Principal, Eisenman Architects; Charles Gwathmey Professor in Practice, Yale School of Architecture + Cynthia Davidson, Founding Editor, Log: Observations on Architecture and the Contemporary City

September 12 – Bjarke Ingels, Founder, BIG Bjarke Ingels Group; Honorary Professor, Royal Academy of Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen

October 10 – James Welling, Photographer; Area Head of Photography, UCLA

October 24 – Peter Brant, Collector, Founder and President, The Brant Foundation, Inc.

November 7 – Annabelle Selldorf, Principal, Selldorf Architects

Conversations in Context is generously supported by Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope ®

Additional support is kindly provided by Nat and Lucy Day.

Tickets, $150 ($100 tax deductible), include a Glass House membership and 10% discount in the Glass House Store. All proceeds support Glass House educational programs, preservation projects, and general operations.

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New Film: Michael Maharam + Paul Makovsky host Conversations in Context

To learn more about the Philip Johnson Glass House visit philipjohnsonglasshouse.org

Filed under: Conversations in Context, Glass House Films, In the News, Tours + Programs, Annabelle Selldorf, Bjarke Ingels, Conversations in Context, Elizabeth Diller, Francois DeMenil, James Welling, Michael Maharam, Murray Moss, Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope ®, Paul Makovsky, Peter Brant, Peter Eisenman, The Glass House

A Conversation with Eliot Noyes’s Son, Architect Fred Noyes

Film: The Fragility of Glass, The Solidity of Stone: Eliot Noyes in New Canaan

by Gwen North Reiss

Eliot Noyes, photograph by Molly Noyes, all rights reserved

The second house that Eliot Noyes designed for his family in New Canaan is known for many things:  the Calder sculpture in the courtyard (and the mobiles inside), the inspired use of glass and fieldstone, and the separation of public and private spaces (you have to go outside through covered walkways around the center court to get to the bedrooms and bathroom) to name a few.  The house, which is still in the Noyes family, was the setting this past spring for a conversation with Eliot Noyes’s son, Boston-based architect Fred Noyes.  Our interview was filmed and photographed by students as part of the Glass House Oral History Project.

Noyes House 1955, back view. Photograph by Gwen North Reiss.

Eliot Noyes was a designer’s designer.  He made a quiet and profound mark on the disciplines of architecture and industrial design.  Are you a baby boomer whose first word processor was the IBM Selectric typewriter?  He designed it.  The modern Mobil logo and its streamlined stations with their circular umbrella-shaped canopies were projects that came from his office.  While a curator of Industrial Design in the 1940s at MoMA, he championed the work of Charles & Ray Eames.  He brought Paul Rand to IBM.  As both Fred Noyes and Gordon Bruce, Noyes’s biographer, both emphasize, his vision of American companies that integrate design, corporate identity, and product lines created a template for the way we do business today.

Noyes House, interior view from living area toward courtyard and front door. Photograph by Jeanne McDonagh.

We discussed Noyes’s life, his houses, and his principles of design.  A short clip features Meridee Noyes Brust, one of Noyes’s two daughters on moving into the second Noyes house.  The theme that emerged in our talk was the way that art, architecture, and life were in Fred’s words “all of a piece.”  While Alexander Calder worked on the sculpture for the Noyes courtyard, the whole family was in on the discussion of scale.  And Eliot suggested steel plates that would help support the weight of the sculpture—an innovation that changed the way Calder designed some of his larger outdoor pieces.  Fred also gave us a glimpse of a childhood visit to Calder’s studio—and how his wild enthusiasm (as he caught the moment of a small creation) gained him a prize.  His telling gives us an astonishing view of the artist at work.

Our interview is in two parts:  “The Fragility of Glass, The Solidity of Stone: Eliot Noyes in New Canaan,” and “A Bird, A Beast, and Two Mobiles: Alexander Calder and the Noyes Family.”  The second film includes a short bio of Noyes before the interview begins.

Film: A Bird, A Beast, and Two Mobiles: Alexander Calder and the Noyes Family

Alexander Calder and crew assembling the stabile (the Black Beast) in the courtyard. Eliot Noyes’s suggestion of using gusset plates to reinforce the sculpture was an idea that allowed the artist to create larger outdoor pieces. Photograph courtesy of the Noyes family, all rights reserved.

Noyes kids on stabile. Photograph courtesy of the Noyes family, all rights reserved.

The Black Beast stabile in snow. Photograph courtesy of the Noyes family, all rights reserved.

Bird by Calder, given to Fred Noyes by the artist. Photograph: Fred Noyes, all rights reserved.

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* The Philip Johnson Glass House is pleased to announce that tickets are now available for the 2013 tour season. A variety of tours are available so visitors can enjoy all aspects of the Glass House, an icon of American modernism, as well as art galleries and other buildings set a 49-acre country landscape. www.philipjohnsonglasshouse.org

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Filed under: Glass House Films, Tours + Programs, Alexander Calder, Eliot Noyes, Fred Noyes, Glass House Oral History Project, New Canaan, The Glass House

New Film: Conversations in Context featuring Beatriz Colomina + Felicity Scott, 2013 Tickets Available

New Film: Beatriz Colomina + Felicity Scott hosting Conversations in Context

The Glass House Conversations in Context program offers visitors the opportunity to join a leader in architecture, art, landscape, history or design for an evening tour of the Glass House campus followed by an intimate conversation and reception on the historic property. Stay tuned for 2013 Conversations in Context speaker line up!

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2013 Tickets On Sale Now!

Tickets for the 2013 Glass House tour season (May 2 – November 30, 2013) are available now

Enjoy the Pure Glass House, Site, Extended, or Focus Tours (Art, Landscape, or Architecture) with access to Philip Johnson’s architecture, fine art collection, and 49-acre curated country landscape.

Described as “the world’s coolest country home” by GQ Magazine, and just over an hour train ride from New York City, tickets to visit the Glass House are the perfect gift for the architecture, design or art enthusiast. Reserve today!

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Rendering of the proposed Cornell NYC Tech campus, Roosevelt Island, New York City. Credit: Kilograph 2012.

Join the Glass House Conversation

Join our online Glass House Conversation on campus design and urbanism hosted by city planner and urban designer, Raymond Gastil, going on now at glasshouseconversations.org!

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Filed under: Conversations in Context, Glass House Conversations, Glass House Films, In the News, Tours + Programs, Beatriz Colomina, Conversations in Context, Felicity Scott, Film, Glass House Conversations, The Glass House, Tickets, Tours

2013 Tickets Available + New Films with Michael Graves, Gary Hilderbrand + John Beardsley

2013 Tickets On Sale Now!

Tickets for the 2013
Glass House tour season
(May 2 – November 30, 2013)
are available now!

Enjoy the Pure Glass House, Site, Extended, or Focus Tours (Art, Landscape, or Architecture) with access to Philip Johnson’s architecture, fine art collection, and 49-acre curated country landscape.

Described as “the world’s coolest country home” by GQ Magazine, and just over an hour train ride from New York City, tickets to visit the Glass House are the perfect gift for the architecture, design or art enthusiast on your list.  Reserve today!

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New Films: Michael Graves, Gary Hilderbrand + John Beardsley hosting Conversations in Context

The Glass House Conversations in Context program offers visitors the opportunity to join a leader in architecture, art, landscape, history or design for an evening tour of the Glass House campus followed by an intimate conversation and reception on the historic property. Stay tuned for 2013 Conversations in Context speaker line up!

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Don’t miss the last chance to visit the Glass House this year! Tickets available now for tours running through December 9, 2012.
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To learn more about the Philip Johnson Glass House visit philipjohnsonglasshouse.org

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Filed under: Conversations in Context, Glass House Films, Tours + Programs, Conversations in Context, Gary Hilderbrand, John Beardsley, Michael Graves, The Glass House, Tickets, Tours

John Johansen, In Memoriam — June 29, 1916 to October 26, 2012

Architecture and Metaphor: An Interview with John Johansen
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Until his death on October 26, John Johansen was the last living member of the Harvard 5, the group of architects who settled in New Canaan, Connecticut after World War II.  Eliot Noyes was the first to buy land in New Canaan and he encouraged his colleagues—Marcel Breuer, Philip Johnson, Landis Gores, and John Johansen to follow. They designed houses for their own families as well as clients and created a laboratory of modern residential architecture among the clapboard Colonials of this small Connecticut town.

In the spring of 2010, a colleague and I traveled to Cape Cod to interview Johansen for the Glass House Oral History Project. He was 93 at the time, and with his wife Ati, had recently moved to Cape Cod, Massachusetts from his Plastic Tent House in Stanfordville, New York.

Filed under: Educational Partnership, Glass House Films, In the News, John Johansen, The Glass Hosue

Glass House News: Conversations in Context with Michael Graves + New Film

Upcoming Conversations in Context 

August 16: Michael Graves, Founding Principal, Michael Graves & Associates and Robert Schirmer Professor of Architecture, Emeritus, Princeton University. Tickets for this program are sold out.

September 20: Gary Hilderbrand Principal, Reed Hilderbrand and Adjunct Professor
of Landscape Architecture, Harvard University + John Beardsley, Director of Garden and Landscape Studies, Dumbarton Oaks and
Adjunct Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture,
Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

October 4: Beatriz Colomina + Felicity Scott
October 11: Michael Maharam + Paul Makovsky
November 8: Murray Moss + Francois de Menil

The Glass House is pleased to present Metropolis Magazine as a 
Conversations in Context 2012 media partner.

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New Film: Pedro Gadanho, Marc Kushner + Matthias Hollwich hosting 
Conversations in Context

The Glass House Conversations in Context program offers visitors the opportunity to join a leader in architecture, art, landscape, history or design for an evening tour of the Glass House campus followed by an intimate conversation and reception on the historic property.

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Join the Glass House Conversation

Join this week’s online conversation, inspired by an Education Think Tank held at the Glass House on July 18, 2012.

What are your ideas for the future of education? How can historic sites and museums inspire?

The Glass House Education Think Tank project is funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Filed under: Conversations in Context, Glass House Films, Tours + Programs, Beatriz Colomina, Conversations in Context, Education Think Tank, Felicity Scott, Francois de Menil, Gary Hilderbrand, John Beardsley, Marc Kushner, Matthias Hollwich, Michael Graves, Michael Maharam, Murray Moss, Paul Makovsky, Pedro Gadanho, The Glass House

New Director + Glass House Conversations Film + Dine with Design Photos

New Director Welcome In late May, Glass House friends gathered at the Four Seasons Restaurant to welcome Director, Henry Urbach. The event was hosted by Frank Stella, Nadja Swarovski, John Bennett, Lisa Dennison/Sotheby’s and generously supported by Swarovski.View photos of the event and read Urbach’s vision for the Glass House to reemerge as a vibrant center for intellectual and cultural life.

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Dine with Design – Thank You!Thank you to all who participated in Dine with Design at the Glass House. Special thanks to the featured chefs and artisans and to our generous sponsors and media partners for their support.Click here to view photos from the event.

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New Film: Kenneth Frampton + Mark Wigley hosting Conversations in ContextThe Glass House Conversations in Context program offers visitors the opportunity to join a leader in architecture, art, landscape, history or design for an evening tour of the Glass House campus followed by an intimate conversation and reception on the historic property.

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Upcoming Conversations in Context 
July 19: Robert A.M. Stern, Dean, Yale School of Architecture, Founder and Senior Partner, Robert A.M. Stern Architects + Henry Urbach, Director, The Glass House (Sold out)
August 16: Michael Graves (Sold Out)
September 20: Gary Hilderbrand + John Beardsley
October 4: Beatriz Colomina + Felicity Scott
October 11: Michael Maharam + Paul Makovsky
November 8: Murray Moss + Francois de Menil

The Glass House is pleased to present Metropolis Magazine as a Conversations in Context 2012 media partner.

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Glass House Focus Tours
Select Mondays, 2:30pm
2-hour guided tour | $45 per person
Focus tours delve into specifics of the tour topic — Art, Architecture, or Landscape — including special access and alternate paths.
Art + Influence Focus Tours begin July 23
Architecture + History Focus Tours begin July 30
Landscape + Gardens Focus Tours begin October 1
Tickets to visit the Glass House during the 2012 season are
available now.

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Filed under: Conversations in Context, Dine with Design, Glass House Films, In the News, Tours + Programs, Beatriz Colomina, Conversations in Context, Dine with Design, Felicity Scott, Film, Four Seasons Restaurant, Francois de Menil, Frank Stella, Gary Hilderbrand, Glass House, Henry Urbach, John Beardsley, John Bennett, Kenneth Frampton, Lisa Dennison, Mark Wigley, Metropolis Magazine, Michael Maharam, Murray Moss, Nadja Swarovski, Paul Makovsky, Programs, Sotheby's, Swarovski, Tours

Painting From Glass House Collection Included in New Exhibition at L&M Arts + Frank Stella Film

Glass House Film: Frank Stella: Return to the Glass House

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Painting From Glass House Collection Included in Exhibition at L&M Arts: The Frank Stella painting, Averroes (1960), from the Philip Johnson Glass House permanent collection is currently on view as part of the exhibition Frank Stella: Black, Aluminum, and Copper Paintings at L&M Arts gallery in New York. See the exhibition now through June 2, 2012, at L&M Arts gallery, 45 East 78 Street New York, NY 10075, 10:00 am – 5:30 pm Tuesday – Saturday, or by appointment. www.lmgallery.com

For more information on the exhibition, the Stella collection at the Philip Johnson Glass House and the recent Glass House visit to Stella’s studio view the Philip Johnson Glass House Blog post: Frank Stella Painting from the Glass House Collection Included in New Exhibition at L&M Arts

Filed under: From the Collection, Glass House Films, In the News, Frank Stella, Frank Stella: Black Aluminum Copper Paintings, L&M Arts, Philip Johnson Glass House

Glass House Films on Pedro Guerrero and Landis Gores Recognized by Connecticut Press Club

Lights, cameras, large dogs, and the huge Frank Lloyd Wright-style Gores living room: An Interview with Pamela Gores. Photo by Amy Rippe.

Philip Johnson Glass House Guide and film coordinator for the Glass House and New Canaan High School educational partnership program, Gwen North Reiss, has won two awards for her part as interviewer and coordinator in two oral history films featuring Landis Gores and Pedro Guerrero, published on the Philip Johnson Glass House website (philipjohnsonglasshouse.org) in 2011.

Gwen North Reiss will receive this year’s 1st and 2nd place awards in the category of web interview/content for a non-profit organization, from the Connecticut Press Club. These interviews were part of the collaboration of the Glass House and the New Canaan High School film department.

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Landis Gores, Architect:  An Interview with Pamela Gores
Peter Kingsbury, film editor/camera
Grayson Cordes, camera, student editor

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Pedro Guerrero Interview
Peter Kingsbury, film editor/camera
Grayson Cordes, student, camera
Casey Ouellette, student editor
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Reiss would like to thank Pamela Gores and Pedro Guerrero, as well as Hunter Palmer and Meri Erickson at the Glass House who oversaw the project.

Filed under: Glass House Films, Connecticut Press Club, Film, Gwen North Reiss, Landis Gores, New Canaan High School, Pedro Guerrero, Philip Johnson Glass House

1967 Glass House Country Happening with Merce Cunningham, John Cage & the Velvet Underground

In honor of John Cage and the John Cage Centennial, which serve as the inspiration for our current Glass House Conversation, we’re sharing one of the many films from the Glass House Visitor Center Media Wall, now available online for the first time.

The film is archival footage of an event held at the Glass House in 1967 to benefit the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Described as a “Country Happening” in Vogue Magazine, August 1967, Merce Cunningham dancers performed to music by John Cage, and later the Velvet Underground took the stage. The original soundtrack to the footage included guests clinking glasses, neighbors complaining, and police arriving to break up the party!

Join the Glass House Conversation; discuss John Cage, the Glass House, Design, Ego and Humility with host Paul Soulellis at glasshouseconversations.org!

Filed under: Glass House Conversations, Glass House Films, Film, Glass House, Glass House Conversations, History, John Cage, John Cage Trust, Merce Cunningham, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Paul Soulellis, Philip Johnson Glass House, Velvet Underground