Modernism on the East Coast – Philip Johnson and the Harvard Five
Our 2018 Iconic Houses Conference and House Tours will explore the East Coast of the USA, retracing the root taken by Modernism when it arrived from Europe. In particular, the New Canaan area has an impressive number of high-quality Modernist homes, because the architects who taught at Harvard built houses for themselves and their friends here. New Canaan is naturally mainly associated with the Glass House. And many of the other masterpieces are the work of Philip Johnson and the Harvard Five. In the 1940s, a group of five architects from Harvard, inspired by the ideas of Bauhaus that Walter Gropius brought with him from Europe, settled in New Canaan, CT, where they stirred up an experimental modernist movement in the sleepy New England town. These unique homes will be the focus of the conference house tours.
Experts will offer an insight about the role of architect Philip Johnson and the Harvard Five in Architectural History of the 20th century. And there are visits to the private masterpieces in and around New Canaan during the afternoon hours of the two lecture days.
