The Glass House / PHOTO: EIRIK JOHNSON
Today and Friday I’ll be on the road. I’ve been invited to join a symposium that’s part of a new series called the Glass House Conversations. These are two-day events sponsored by the Philip Johnson Glass House n New Canaan, Conn., which is owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The organizers invite ten people to sit around at lunch in the Glass House to discuss a topic in some area that fascinated Johnson. (Yeah, I know — art critic; it’s a tough job.) If the weather is clear we may also be learning first hand how he dealt with the problem of shifting sunlight pouring through the glass walls in a house where the only enclosed space is the bathroom. I’ll let you know if that’s where they serve dessert.
But first we assemble today at Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate on the Hudson, where I’m guessing dessert is never served in the bathroom. (Though as I recall, during the design phase John D. Rockefeller was also preoccupied with how sunlight would enter his new house at different times of day, and mapped out the sun’s path for his architects like he was Copernicus.) After a sleepover at Kykuit — is this why they call bloggers the pajamas media? — we reassemble on Friday at the Glass House compound, which I wrote about here and here when it was about to open to the public last spring. Our topic will be “Design and Civic Leadership” in the New York area, which I suppose is a way of framing the question of how do you get unruly New York, with its multitude of stakeholders and power players, to resist the eternal — meaning always economical — temptation of mediocrity? (Note to self: unruly is good; unruly is what we like about the place.)
I’ll post again tomorrow, and more when I get back in harness next Monday. Meanwhile, here’s a great Ed Lifson visual rhyming post. Mr. Johnson, meet Mr. Hopper. (With or without Legos.)