Philip Johnson: Diary of an Eccentric Architect

Tuesday, April 10, at 5:30 p.m. at the Kate 300 Main Street, Old Saybrook, CT 06475. Tickets $15 per film. Bridging the Arts is a curated film series co-sponsored by Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts and the Kate. The series features a selection of art films produced by the highly-regarded Checkerboard Film Foundation, Inc. and includes a brief lecture before each film. “My place in New Canaan is…a diary of an eccentric architect.” Thus begins a fascinating look into the mind of one of our most creative and significant architects. Philip Johnson was always on the forefront of stylistic change, and his property in New Canaan, Connecticut, is a kind of laboratory where Johnson was his own best client. It was there that he built the famous “Glass House” that he resided in for so many years. This building has no walls; (the landscape became “expensive wallpaper”) an accompanying guest house, by contrast, has no windows, though it is light and sensuous inside. We visit these, as well as the gallery which houses Johnson’s extensive collection of contemporary art on its revolving walls. “My latest folly,” says Johnson, “is to build buildings without straight lines…It’s the first time I’ve had a building I can’t draw and have to design partially as it goes up.” This new structure is at the core of the film, and we are able to see the sculptural building progress from its initial stages to completion. This documentary depicts Johnson at work and the importance of the architectural act, the actual construction, and how the buildings interact with their environment — in this case, the autumn leaves or snow of New Canaan. View film trailer: http://www.youtube.com/embed/XpOS_wE0xkQ Bio: Philip Johnson (1906-2005) was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1906, and in the years since has become one of architecture’s most potent forces. Before designing his first building at the age of 36, Johnson had been client, critic, author, historian, museum director, but not an architect. In 1949, after a number of years as the Museum of Modern Art’s first director of the Architecture Department, Johnson designed a residence for himself in New Canaan, Connecticut for his master degree thesis, the now famous Glass House. He literally coined the term “International School of Architecture” for an exhibition at MOMA. (http://www.pritzkerprize.com/biography-philip-johnson)