Glass House | Toshio Nakamura

The Glass House, designed by celebrated architect Philip Johnson as a personal retreat, is an icon of modern architecture. A crystalline box set in a serene New England landscape, the house is now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which will open it to visitors in April 2007. Johnson used his property near New Canaan, Connecticut, as an architectural laboratory, adding nine additional structures over a forty-year period. Among them are the Ghost House, a chain-link tribute to Frank Gehry, and the witty, bright red Gate House. Glass House is a unique presentation of the Glass House complex in words and photographs. Compiled by eminent critic Toshio Nakamura under the sponsorship of YKK AP Inc., the volume features a specially commissioned suite of photographs, taken throughout the four seasons, by renowned architectural photographer Michael Moran, including cross-processed images and images taken with infrared film. The deluxe graphic presentation, with distinctive paper stocks and foldout pages reproducing Johnson's original drawings, was conceived by designer Michael Rock of 2x4.