The Glass House was a weekend retreat for Philip Johnson and a place where he
explored themes of play through the design of buildings and landscapes. Johnson
and guests could interact with the environment by walking, strolling and
climbing, as well as enjoy the view.

Today many designers, architects and urban planners are working to create spaces
that encourage play, health and well-being. From my experience, employing the
practice of evidence-based design opens up a productive and informative
interdisciplinary dialogue with professionals from across the fields of science,
medicine, design and culture.

The recently restored Tugendhat House by Mies van der Rohe has just reopened to the public. In the words of Jean-Louis Cohen in The Wall Street Journal, the House’s restoration “has benefited from a new approach to preserving Modernist buildings”, and now “a new generation of experts takes an “archaeological” view, yielding superb results.” The Tugendhat House recovered “its grand atmosphere from the 1930s”.

Having worked for many years as curator of Gio Ponti’s Villa Planchart in Caracas (1957), I witnessed a totally different – much slower, less scientific, but very successful – preservation process. Similarly perfect results were achieved through years of intuition and passion for architecture.

Reportedly the first eyeglasses were made in late 14th Century in Pisa. Johnson borrowed his design from Le Corbusier and had his own version custom made. Like the theatrical devises now commonly called “lorgnettes” through which theater goers can view other people and remain un-noticed, spectacles can effect a major change to the facial landscape and at the same time orient focus onto the fantastic story on stage. Spectacles for spectacles.

While mulling over the relationship of a designer’s personal style and the design choices that dominate a designer’s renderings, the subject of frames — specifically eyeglass frames  – come to mind. In short, it seems that spectacles as eyeglasses are structures we see through, and spectacles as events are something we look to. The former can be said to make a person’s appearance memorable, but the latter is predicated on making a memorable impression. Both allow for a balance of what is hidden and what gets revealed and thus both involve a certain amount of voyeuristic sleight of hand directing of the eye and the subject.

Considering the landscape an integral part of an overall architectural solution, we identify regional context and a sense of place as the primary objectives. To us, unity, harmony and human experience are the driving force.

Her response was: “So, how is life with the 1%?” After a career in design, I certainly didn’t feel like a member of the 1%, but from my view of the champagne bar in the VIP lounge it was clear that I was in close proximity. Then, I began to wonder:

“I gave up making choices. I’ve merely changed my responsibility from making choices to asking questions. It’s not easy to ask questions.” (John Cage)

2012 marks the centennial of the birth of John Cage, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century and a headliner in the first Glass House Country Happening (1967) with The Velvet Underground and Merce Cunningham.

For 50 years, Cage developed an approach to music, art and design involving “chance operations”—a shift in the creative process from taste and judgement to highly disciplined questioning. Cage’s removal of his judgement from decision-making brings up critical questions about the role of the ego in creativity, suggesting that a more open acknowledgement of ambiguity and uncertainty—even failure—in design might be valuable.

Philip Johnson was unabashed in his acknowledgment of the sources of inspiration for his designs. Johnson noted his vision for Da Monsta stemmed from his close friend artist Frank Stella’s design for the Dresden Kunsthalle in Germany. Today, many artists (for example David Diao’s painting, The Rug, It Shrank!, 2004-5, Sarah Morris’s ceiling installation Robert Towne, 2006, or Pae White’s Restless Rainbow, 2011) take their inspiration from the world of design –architecture, furniture, typography and fashion– mixing contemporary art and design in innovative, perhaps controversial, ways.

As an artistic representation, a portrait is intended to convey not only the subject’s physical appearance but also reflect his or her disposition. It has been said that an architect’s house is the ultimate self-portrait. One may argue that the same holds true for visual artists. Through the years, painters as disparate as Frederic Edwin Church, Emil Nolde, Salvador Dali, and Julian Schnabel have played a significant role in the design and construction of their own private residences.