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We are so thrilled to introduce another post from one of our Advisory Board members . We ’ll be running regular column about stirring and horticulture tip from our consultative add-in throughout the year . ( If you missed it , some of our past editorial have includehow to plant dahlia , by Frances Palmer , create seaweed artwork , by Karen Robertson , andcreating a container cutting garden , by Saipua , akaSarah Ryhanen . ) This is the first of our Inspiration Point series , where our Advisory Board member write about what has charm their estimate and oeuvre .
This mail is byPaul Keyes , who helped create our James Beard garden makeover .
A view of Philip Johnson ’s Glass House , in New Canaan , Connecticut . picture by : Eirik Johnson .
When I was about 16 years old I saw an influential docudrama on PBS aboutarchitect Philip Johnson . The docudrama was about his entire life ’s work as an architect , but I was most impressed by the modernistic Glass House on his estate in New Canaan , Connecticut .
The Glass House , Johnson ’s weekend residence , is a masterpiece of steel and chicken feed , and the building is a statement of geometry , sheer structure , symmetry , transparency and connectedness to the surrounding landscape painting and nature . The glass wall look out upon a masterfully machinate and manicured landscape painting of rolling lawn , trees , gravel paths and views , which he refer to as “ vestibule . ” The shape and slopes and curves of the ground were carefully planned and executed and the sight were striking . " I have very expensive wallpaper , " Johnson once read .
A scene of the house from below . Photo by : Eirik Johnson .
As a decorator I have always been influenced by this historic piece of computer architecture . To me , it represented a unique relationship between the natural and constructed humans . I was always a lover of traditional and historic architecture and I had never escort anything like it .
Not only did it introduce me to modern computer architecture but more significantly , the Glass House illuminated the relationship between Isle of Man , the constructed macrocosm , and nature for me . I often crop on homes designed by architects that break down to see this connexion , as they do not see beyond the walls of the house .
This is very thwarting for me , but it also rick out to be a unequalled and positive side effect for me , a landscape painting and garden architect . I approach every landscape design job from the interior of the sign appear out . I listen to my clients ' landscaping and garden indigence and then I go inside their homes . My clients are often surprised when I ask to walk through the inside of the home first so I can see inside the way and figure out how I can make unexampled connections to the outside . I always look to see where I can add chalk , make windows bigger , tot room access , rupture down wall , and combine inside and outside spaces . Not only do I want to enhance the landscape painting but I also need to enhance the survey from deep down .
A view of the prop from inside the Glass House . photograph by : Eirik Johnson .
Johnson ’s Glass House is always on my mind , influencing my design work . I always had a desire to either be in a exchangeable building , so I could experience the feeling of living in such a home myself , or to project something in kind .
I got that opportunity in 2001 when a client wanted me to establish a tennis court on a wooded piece of land of land in Englewood , New Jersey . I thought this was a distinctive design date but when I arrived he showed me the plan for a 40,000 - satisfying - foot Georgian Colonial nursing home with an indoor lawn tennis motor inn . The client necessitate my opinion of the plans and the project and I said I believe they were horrible because it was not only wasteful comparative to his needs , but also overbuilt and it would demolish the glorious natural mount .
It was not something I wanted to be involve with design , constructing , or landscaping . I was surprised when he narrate me to fire the architect and to go come up a team that understood my perspective . I find two architects , Robert Rhodesand Stan Jones , who understood my economic value and eventually designed a individual indoor tennis court that was a modernistic semitransparent structure in the Ellen Price Wood .
pic of the tennis court . I moot Philip Johnson ’s Glass House to be the guiding influence for this project . Photos by : Paul Keyes .
I finished the mental synthesis of the construction with a carefully design landscape painting that mime and built on the natural setting of the site . It was a great honor and tremendously rewarding to design and landscape this building .
inhalation for my body of work come from many directions and my advice to landscape interior designer and homeowners is to look past the traditional root for design . pace outside the box for idea for designing and for techniques for building and installation .
Traditional architecture had always hold an appeal for me , but that inadvertent exposure to Johnson ’s piece of work change my humans and the result on that tennis court undertaking were striking . Be open to new ideas and let yourself be influence in slipway that take you out of your comfort zone .
See moreNew England gardens .
