The Brick House, a guesthouse designed by architect Philip Johnson in New Canaan, Connecticut, has reopened following extensive restoration. Part of the renowned Glass House estate, Johnson covered the Brick House in Flemish-bond brickwork and positioned it just 80 feet from the Glass House. Despite its plain exterior, the Brick House interior reveals intricate details, including a dim, sand-hued bedroom inspired by a domed parlor in John Soane’s 19th-century London home. Johnson used Fortuny fabric, custom lighting, and an Ibram Lassaw sculpture to create a womb-like, glamorous atmosphere. The Brick House also contains the mechanical equipment powering the Glass House and other spaces like a study and skylit bathroom. Its restoration, in time for the Glass House’s 75th anniversary, emphasizes the estate’s architectural depth and Johnson’s human side, highlighting how the guesthouse offered refuge from the glass-and-steel aesthetic purity of his main masterpiece.
Philip Johnson’s Glass House, a rectangular glass-and-steel residence in New Canaan, Connecticut, has symbolized mid-century elegance since its completion in 1949. Before becoming an architect at age 37, Johnson directed the architecture department at MoMA. He also curated the landmark 1932 exhibition that helped define the Modernist International Style. The Glass House, which Johnson inhabited for over five decades, represented this aesthetic and solidified his reputation as an influential New York architect. When Johnson died in 2005, the property had expanded from five acres to encompass 14 structures, including follies, a subterranean painting gallery, and a shingled 18th-century home used as a summer refuge by Johnson and his partner, curator David Whitney.
Johnson designed the 860-square-foot Brick House at the same time as the 1,728-square-foot Glass House, positioning the guest just 80 feet away at a slight angle. Wrapped in iron-spotted red brick, the Brick House faced away from the main residence and contained essential mechanical equipment supplying electricity and heat to the Glass House. Its only windows, three mahogany-framed portholes, were placed on the rear side. Johnson noted in a 1991 interview that guests didn’t need a window facing his house but instead could “look their own way out to the hill.”
The Brick House interior includes a granite-floored hallway that doubles as a gallery displaying Brice Marden’s “Etchings to Rexroth” (1986). A door at the end of this hall leads to the building’s focal point: a sand-hued bedroom featuring a vaulted pavilion and delicate plaster columns. Inspired by a domed parlor in John Soane’s 19th-century London home, Johnson created a monastic yet glamorous room using cotton panels from the Venice-based textile house Fortuny with a feather motif. Lighting designer Richard Kelly’s indirect lighting design accentuates a bronze-and-steel sculpture, “Clouds of Magellan,” by Ibram Lassaw. The room’s warmth is enhanced by a champagne-colored carpet and Johnson-designed velour poufs.
The adjacent study features Gaetano Pesce chairs, pastel colors, and a section of Johnson’s 950-volume library, offering insights into his troubling fascination with Fascism. The narrow bathroom, renovated in 1985, contains black marble walls, brass fixtures, and a skylight. The Brick House’s exterior simplicity contrasts sharply with the interior’s dramatic color and texture.
The Brick House’s reopening coincides with the Glass House’s 75th anniversary. Paul Goldberger, chair of the Glass House advisory council, believes Johnson sought to show how modern architecture could be warm and sensual. Scholars have interpreted the Brick House as a “queer space,” reflecting Johnson’s compartmentalized identity. Ultimately, the Brick House completes an iconic American estate, providing an intimate space that offered Johnson privacy beyond the crystalline purity of the Glass House.
