Edge of Danger: Electric Light and the Negotiation of Public and Private Domestic Space in Philip Johnson's Glass and Guest Houses more

In the first half of the twentieth century the dematerializing of boundaries between enclosure and exposure problematized the conventions and traditional expectations of the domestic environment. At the same time, as a space of escalating technological control, the modern domestic interior also offered new potential to re-define the meaning and means of habitation. The inherent tension between these opposing forces is particularly evident in the introduction of new electric lighting technology and applications into the modern domestic interior in the mid-twentieth century. Addressing this nexus point of technology and domestic psychology, the following essay examines the critical role of electric lighting in regulating and framing both the public and private occupation of Philip Johnson’s New Canaan estate. Exploring the dialectically paired transparent Glass House and opaque Guest House, this study illustrates how Johnson employed electric light to negotiate the visual environment of the estate as well as to help sustain a highly aestheticized domestic lifestyle. Johnson’s use of electric light to maintain the transparent exposure of the Glass House as well as to intensify the sensual interior landscape of the Guest House, when contextualised within the existing literature, provides a more complex understanding of the construction of two very different forms of domestic occupation within the New Canaan estate. Through this investigation, we are afforded a more nuanced understanding of Johnson’s process as an architect and a client, as well as the means with which he inhabited his own architecture.