Out & About
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
People Who Benefit The Glass House …
At the opening of the Philip Johnson Glass House in New Canaan, Conn., on Saturday, a crush never formed to get into the house itself. Rather, in sunglasses and hats, holding picnic baskets — and in the case of art patron Agnes Gund, two big dogs — 500 guests circled the building or stood near it, gazing inside.
It seemed that no more than 20 people were ever inside the house at any given time.
Perhaps the picnic baskets’ cheese tray, olives, and brownies were too delicious. And the fine weather was likely at play, not to mention the respectfulness of a crowd who could see how few would fit into the onestory house.
On the other hand, this was the historic opening of the property, which guests had paid $500 and up to attend — yielding $750,000 toward the purchase of four acres of land adjacent to the site. So why would one not want to spend the entire day inside?
Perhaps the best explanation is the power of the house itself. Curator-turned-architect Johnson, who lived there for more than 50 years, conceived the grounds as just as important to the experience of the building as the building itself.
Outside or in made no difference — unless you were the fair-skinned executive director of the Glass House, Christy MacLear, who quickly developed a sunburn on her back.
But there were differences for some guests, namely those who had memories of visiting as the guest of Johnson and his companion, David Whitney.
“It feels different because there is no person here to be the center. Now it’s just the house,” the artist Jasper Johns said as he stepped onto the gravel pathway outside the house.
Writer Francine du Plessix Gray said the house was “much more” than she remembered when she visited as a Barnard senior up for the weekend with a Johnson acolyte, Peter Blake.
Rosamond Bernier and John Russell were glad the day was not as hot as on May 24, 1975, the day they were married at the Glass House. At their wedding, the entertainment was an organ concert and a reading by legendary actress Irene Worth from the Restoration comedy “The Way of the World.”
On June 23, 2007, after guests had had free rein to roam the site, Merce Cunningham’s dance company staged an hour-long outdoor performance, incorporating snippets of one he staged there in 1967.
“This is a good day,” Mr. Cunningham said after the last dancer had leapt to the sky. One thing that was much improved since 1967 was the sound: “They put speakers all over,” he said.
“I love it, the whole thing, absolutely,” Mary Warburg, whose late husband, Edward, was a Harvard cohort of Johnson and the original director of the Museum of Modern Art, Alfred Barr, said.
In the end, the event was not about the buildings, but about people interacting with the buildings. “I’ve never seen it with so many people. It’s wonderful, very festive,” the architect Maya Lin said.
The success of the day bodes well for the site’s new life as a destination for the public — not that hundreds of people will be converging on it daily. Tours, already booked up for the 2007 season, are limited to six parties of 10 a day.
