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We are so thrilled to inclose another post from one of our Advisory Board members . We ’ll be running even columns about inspiration and gardening tips from our advisory board throughout the year . ( If you overleap it , some of our preceding columns have includehow to imbed dahlias , by Frances Palmer , creating seaweed artwork , by Karen Robertson , andcreating a container film editing garden , by Saipua , akaSarah Ryhanen . ) This is the first of our Inspiration Point series , where our Advisory Board members indite about what has influenced their idea and work .
This berth is byPaul Keyes , who helped make our James Beard garden makeover .
A persuasion of Philip Johnson ’s Glass House , in New Canaan , Connecticut . Photo by : Eirik Johnson .
When I was about 16 age old I saw an influential documentary on PBS aboutarchitect Philip Johnson . The infotainment was about his entire life ’s body of work as an architect , but I was most impressed by the modern Glass House on his estate in New Canaan , Connecticut .
The Glass House , Johnson ’s weekend residence , is a chef-d’oeuvre of steel and glassful , and the edifice is a instruction of geometry , bold structure , proportion , transparency and connection to the circumvent landscape and nature . The glass wall look out upon a masterfully devise and manicure landscape of rolled lawn , trees , gravel way of life and views , which he refer to as “ foyer . ” The form and slopes and curves of the background were cautiously contrive and executed and the views were prominent . " I have very expensive wallpaper , " Johnson once said .
A view of the house from below . Photo by : Eirik Johnson .
As a designer I have always been shape by this historic opus of architecture . To me , it present a unequaled relationship between the natural and constructed human beings . I was always a lover of traditional and historical computer architecture and I had never realise anything like it .
Not only did it stick in me to modern architecture but more significantly , the Glass House illuminated the human relationship between humanity , the construct world , and nature for me . I often work on homes design by architects that fail to see this connection , as they do not see beyond the wall of the menage .
This is very frustrative for me , but it also turns out to be a unique and positive side burden for me , a landscape painting and garden designer . I approach every landscape design line of work from the inside of the sign looking out . I listen to my node ' landscaping and garden needs and then I go inside their plate . My clients are often surprised when I need to take the air through the inside of the star sign first so I can see inside the way and image out how I can make new connections to the outside . I always look to see where I can total chicken feed , make windows bigger , add door , shoot down wall , and combine at heart and external spaces . Not only do I want to enhance the landscape painting but I also want to heighten the view from inside .
A position of the prop from inside the Glass House . Photo by : Eirik Johnson .
Johnson ’s Glass House is always on my mind , influencing my design work . I always had a desire to either live in a similar construction , so I could experience the feeling of go in such a home myself , or to design something in kind .
I pay off that opportunity in 2001 when a node wanted me to ramp up a lawn tennis court on a wooded parcel of land in Englewood , New Jersey . I thought this was a distinctive blueprint appointment but when I get in he designate me the plan for a 40,000 - square - foot Georgian Colonial home with an indoor tennis court . The client ask my judgement of the programme and the project and I said I thought they were horrible because it was not only wasteful relative to his needs , but also overbuilt and it would destroy the magnificent natural setting .
It was not something I wanted to be involved with designing , manufacture , or landscape gardening . I was surprised when he told me to fire the architect and to go get hold a squad that empathise my perspective . I discover two designer , Robert Rhodesand Stan Jones , who understood my value and eventually designed a private indoor lawn tennis Margaret Court that was a modern translucent social structure in the woods .
Photos of the lawn tennis court . I consider Philip Johnson ’s Glass House to be the guiding influence for this project . Photos by : Paul Keyes .
I finished the expression of the building with a carefully project landscape that mime and built on the natural setting of the internet site . It was a great honor and hugely rewarding to design and landscape this edifice .
brainchild for my employment comes from many directions and my advice to landscape couturier and homeowners is to look past the traditional sources for purpose . Step outside the corner for mind for design and for techniques for construction and instalment .
Traditional computer architecture had always held an appeal for me , but that accidental vulnerability to Johnson ’s work interchange my world and the results on that lawn tennis tribunal project were prominent . Be open to Modern idea and let yourself be mold in way that take you out of your comfort zone .
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