In September 2011, publisher Rizzoli New York released The Glass House, a photo tour of Philip Johnson’s famous estate. The book includes text by Philip Johnson himself and by architecture critic Paul Goldberger, and is the official Glass House book of The National Trust for Historic Preservation. Robin Hill’s photo “Glass House Dawn” was selected to appear on the book’s cover.
Below is the final piece of a three-part installment wherein Robin Hill shares his experience of photographing the Glass House estate. View Part One and Part Two for the rest of the story.
My journey continues in its roundabout way, and I am now upon a gate, the likes of which I have never seen before. It is most unusual. I try to find a historic connection to its design but find none. What I do find is a beautifully scaled, welcoming structure that entices one to enter. It is everything that an entrance way to a gated community is not. Even when the barrier is down, it feels open. The Pillars rise high on both sides and are painted a welcoming tone of brown, quite different from the brown that smothers the library. Slung low across the bottom quarter is a brushed aluminum tube that splices the composition perfectly, both in terms of its height and its color. The gate is also quite a trick of visual play, as it actually consists of four pillars, not two as it appears from the full frontal view. The pillars on either side stand back to back with their identical twins behind them. This is a very clever way of hiding the mechanism that lifts and lowers the gate. The wires are hidden from the front view and delicately balance the gate between the two pillars. The engineering is sublime and gives a gentle equipoise to the whole structure. There are not enough Os in the word "smooth" to describe this gate.
In September 2011, publisher Rizzoli New York released The Glass House, a photo tour of Philip Johnson’s famous estate. The book includes text by Philip Johnson himself and by architecture critic Paul Goldberger and is the official Glass House book of The National Trust for Historic Preservation. Robin Hill’s photo “Glass House Dawn” was selected to appear on the book’s cover.
Below is the second of a three-part installment wherein Robin Hill shares his experience of photographing the Glass House estate. Read part one here.
Now I am making my way the few steps toward the lakeside pavilion. Here Johnson is up to new tricks. As I approach the lakeside, I am reminded of the London Underground loudspeaker system, which brusquely ejaculates "MIND THE GAP" every time you board or deboard a train. Instead of designing the pavilion to gently nudge the shoreline, there's this intentional but irritating gap that Johnson has deliberately placed in one's way. Why? My first thought is "to mess with your head" or perhaps it is to make you pay attention. OK, so now I'm paying attention, and the impression is that ordinary scale has been obliterated by the architect's hands. This is a perfect modern folly. It is barely functional, save to sit underneath and have an uncomfortable picnic. Through these photographer's eyes excellent framing opportunities are created by the multiple archways. The visual pun is too obvious for my taste, however, and the pavilion does nothing for me in an architectural sense. I begin to feel that this is a dud, a Johnson experiment that doesn't really work very well in either form or function. Perhaps, this is indicative of Johnson's uneven career as an architect, brilliant one minute and mediocre the next. In the space of a few steps I have gone from momentous elevation to ungarnished mediocrity, from design excellence to controlled vacuousness. Still, the adventure of being here leaves my intellect alone for a while and I am left in solitude in the middle of a 46-acre design campus. Heaven! There is a serenity here that is both palpable and meaningful.
In September 2011, publisher Rizzoli New York released The Glass House, a photo tour of Philip Johnson’s famous estate. The book includes text by Philip Johnson himself and by architecture critic Paul Goldberger and is the official Glass House book of The National Trust for Historic Preservation. Robin Hill’s photo “Glass House Dawn” was selected to appear on the book’s cover.
Below is the first of a three-part installment wherein Robin Hill shares his experience of photographing the Glass House estate.
A handful of iconic houses have reached the public imagination, and the Glass House is among the finest. In this transparent pavilion, surrounded by nature, Philip Johnson designed an architectural gem of quiet depth and epic simplicity. Its power arises from the Earth and exerts itself into a natural auditorium that can suffuse the visitor with a sense of grateful contemplation. It is a chapel in a cathedral of nature. One could be tempted into thinking that the Glass House is just a brown rectangular box with see-through walls, but to follow this line of thinking is to miss the point, because its simplicity hides a raw architectural sophistication that transcends an ordinary interpretation of space, providing the visitor with a unique opportunity to experience nature and architecture as a continuous whole.
<强>百加得建筑提供迈阿密现代(MIMO)的一个显着的例子在佛罗里达州迈阿密。强> p>
一些组合只是不可抗拒:弗雷德阿斯泰尔和罗杰斯,Lennon和McCartney的,西蒙和加芬克尔,百加得和焦炭。两栋楼之间存在这样的关系似乎是一个隐喻舒展的一点 - 那就是,直到你遇到两个华丽雕琢的建筑组成的百加得在迈阿密综合楼在这里。其中建筑高高耸立而骄傲,其他跨度广泛,丰富多彩。如果百加得大厦是一首歌,他们可能是著名的列侬和麦卡特尼记录,“一天的生活”,从1967年的专辑的军士。辣椒的孤独之心俱乐部乐队 em>的。列侬的更高的腐蚀歌词上升基调,定义他们的音乐广场,和McCartney的乐观反驳调皮地提供了一个背景。百加得的塔,由恩里克Guitierrez于1964年设计的,上升冷却,并从其根部混凝土建筑肥沃,百加得及的立方体,由伊格纳西奥卡雷拉-Justiz于1973年设计的,顶上跳舞幕后充满希望的底座。这是一个非常优雅的并置。 To extend the metaphor, it is like the juxtaposition afforded by Lennon and McCartney in "A Day in the Life," in which the contrast is emphasized by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing backward. In the Bacardi complex, the work of Guitierrez and Carrera-Justiz is divided by Bacardi's corporate logo, the Bat. Stroll through the plaza and find yourself transported into a world of modernist sophistication, spatial clarity, and a cool urban rhythm that Vitruvius would have delighted in.