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Tackiness expands its domains.

itsstillmatt

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Originally Posted by johnapril
It looks like they furnished with stuff leftover from other places.
Nah, it looks like the owners told there designer that they wanted something "homey, but elegant and modern." Like most interior desecrators unable of a single original thought, theirs picked out somthing homey, something elegant and something modern. It all strikes me as fake and impersonal.
 

TheFoo

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Originally Posted by SoCal2NYC
And probably very comfortable.

Eh. I prefer firmer seating. I just sink into cushiony surfaces like that. Also, I hate it when the bottom cushions are so deep that you can't sit against the backrest unless you have 100-pound thighs or are comfortable with your legs dangling in the air.
 

odoreater

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What exactly is so special about the architecture of that house? It looks like one of those little offices you see right next to the strip mall.
 

johnapril

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Two words: Billy Joel.
 

Willsw

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Though it didn't require me to login:

Through a Glass, Clearly, a Modernist's Questing Spirit

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: July 6, 2007

NEW CANAAN, Conn. "” It seemed as if he would never release his grip. Architect, curator, critic, collector, socialite and self-proclaimed Peck's bad boy, Philip Johnson hovered above American architecture for more than a half-century, ruling the profession like a giddy puppet master.

Two and a half years ago, at 98, he finally succumbed, and slowly his aura is beginning to fade. It is unlikely that any single person will ever hold so much sway over the profession again, but we are beginning to view his legacy with a bit more clarity.

Nowhere is this more evident than at the 47-acre estate that Johnson built for himself here over a span of nearly 50 years and that opened to the public last month. A collection of 14 structures that includes the legendary Glass House, completed in 1949; a guesthouse; an art gallery; and a sculpture pavilion, the complex survives as an enticing voyage through the ups and downs of late-20th-century architecture set in a dreamy landscape of rolling lawns and maple trees.

But as imposing as it is as a historical landmark, it is as telling about his weaknesses as a designer as about his influence as an advocate for architecture. Its uneven collection of architectural follies is an expression of a man more notable for a restless imagination and insatiable cultural appetites than for his gifts as an architect.

Take the Glass House. For all its fame, the house is an imperfect work. A simple glass box supported by slender steel pillars, it was once one of the most famous houses in the United States. To sit here with Johnson was to enter the heart of the American cultural establishment, and its celebrity may have done more to make Modernism palatable to the country's social elites than any other structure of the 20th century.

It is also a legitimate aesthetic triumph. On a gorgeous New England day, the play of its glass surfaces creates a layering of images, from reflections of the surrounding trees to the shadowy silhouettes of people walking around inside. And the classical references alluded to by its thin brick base and the symmetrical proportions of its frame demonstrate the range of Johnson's historical knowledge.

Yet it is also easy to see why Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a pillar of early Modernism and Johnson's mentor, stormed out in a huff when he saw it. The house was famously influenced by Mies's Farnsworth House, which was designed before Johnson's Glass House but built, in Illinois, several years later, leaving the impression that the student had leapfrogged over his master. More important, Johnson's vision lacked the intellectual rigor and exquisite detailing that were so critical to Mies's genius. The steel I-beams that mark the corners of the Glass House are clumsily detailed "” especially disconcerting in a work of such purity.

The painting gallery, though less famous, is more idiosyncratic. Johnson, a serious collector of 20th-century art, didn't want the gallery to draw attention away from his house, so he buried it under a grassy mound. Its entry, cut into one side of this mound, evokes a primitive temple. Inside the galleries are arranged in a three-leaf-clover pattern, with paintings suspended on big, carpeted panels that can be flipped through like posters on a revolving rack.

The unorthodox arrangement meant that visitors could essentially organize their own shows. But it is also surprisingly rigid. Only six paintings can be on view at a time, and the windowless gallery has a dark and somber feel. (Johnson, aptly enough, liked to call it his kunstbunker.)

The sculpture gallery is my particular favorite. An asymmetrical white-brick shed with a glass roof, it was conceived as a series of interlocking rooms that step down around an open, central space. It is one of Johnson's most original works. The openness of the space gives the art ample room to breathe. The procession down and around through the space allows you to focus on individual works while catching glimpses of what's to follow "” a wonderful architectural tease.

Purists argue that the deep shadows cast on the sculpture by the rafters that support the glass roof are a distraction to viewing art. But this has more to do with the current uptightness of the art world than with a meaningful appraisal of what it's like to experience the art here. The flickers of shadows have effects similar to, say, those that would be caused by the leaves and branches of a tree if the works were standing in a garden. The play of light enlivens the art as well as the galleries, so that the mood changes with the passing of a cloud or a change in seasons.

Johnson, whose many charms included a self-deprecating humor, would often dismiss the notion that he was a great architect with a wave of the hand. But he clearly cared. He donated the property to the National Trust for Historic Preservation with the aim of cementing his legacy. In 1995 he even built a visitors' pavilion, called Da Monsta, at the site, his somewhat embarrassing take on so-called Deconstructivist architecture. (A new visitors' center was created later in downtown New Canaan.)

Still, what mattered most about Johnson might have less to do with his gifts as an architect than with his intellectual openness. If, as an architect, he was partly undone by a lack of patience, he had all of the other attributes of a great talent: a willingness to test new ideas, to push limits to their extremes, to stay firmly rooted in the present. In the end, the Glass House exists mostly as a testament to someone who, for all his weaknesses, could always make architecture feel wonderfully alive.
 

LabelKing

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I'm not entirely sure, but I have the impression that those windows and doors aren't original either. They look double-paned.
 

Baron

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You guys haven't seen enough horrible interiors if you're offended by that one. It's a little boring, and that tufted coffee table/ottoman is pretty gross, but it looks comfortable. And at least it isn't overdesigned with all period pieces, which I think makes a house look too much like a showroom.
 

robin

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Originally Posted by Baron
You guys haven't seen enough horrible interiors if you're offended by that one.
I think most houses and apartments that I've been invited to have all had horrible interiors, the one I live in included.
 

satorstyle

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The interior design is not awful it just doesn't fit the design and feel of the house. I own a very modern designed home and unfortunately the interior design would be considered spare and minimal to some, although the seating is comfortable.
 

LabelKing

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I think the interior design is just mediocre. Nothing really goes together and the stuff looks kind of cheap.

This is the perfect interior for some taxidermy--maybe a stuffed posted tiger.
 

summej2

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I think the steel frames are original, but the doors are most certainly a replacement.

This is how the former owner of our house http://www.styleforum.net/attachment...6&d=1163692934decorated. It made me wonder why they didn't buy a Victorian row house if they wanted to clutter up the rooms.
 

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