2..“The Glass box” as a  book and a museum                                                 The “Glass House”  by  Philip Johnson, Toshio Nakamura  and  Monacelli Press

                                                                 An essay of appreciation and criticism  by A.C.Antoniades, AIA

The title sounds strange even to me that have struggled with this essay for quite sometime. Architects, obviously, have no hard time with the “glass box” stereotype, as most of our cities have been overloaded with such boxes. But the “glass box as a book or a museum?”  Let us see if we can clarify the title :

Can you  take along with you the Parthenon, the Pyramid of Giza, The Taz-Mahal,  the Spanish Steps, the Meinji-Jingu Shrine , the Kimbell Art Museum following your visit to them ? Well, NO !! But sometimes you may carry with you for life some positive, sensual and highly poetic memories, other times not . These are mostly fragments :  A vision of the incredible, other times the memory of camel owners or paraphernalia sellers, trying to seduce you to a ride or the buy of an Egyptian gown. On the other hand, the sound of the gravel and the singing of the birds, before the abrupt turn at the Meinji Jingu at the point you just see the shrine at the distance, positive feeling and eternal memory perhaps as that when visiting Kahn’s great museum at Forth Worth…!

But in the Architecture without walls , THE BOOK, you can have all of the above at your fingertips, in the highest of memory, feeling and the Poetic . There is no doubt in my mind that one of the best such books ever created on Architecture is the “Glass House” by Monacelli Press.

This book represents for me “Architecture in its entirety”, that is , an evaluative and interpretive presentation of the work of Architectural Act in time: the building in its context, as conceived , built and even criticized  by its  architect ; as evolved along with its meaning and the interpretations of its critics ; through its  contribution to architecture by means of experimentation and materials of the era, and finally through the ever-evolving advancement of its architect  to  “inclusiveness”, as evidenced though Philip Johnson’s other works that spot the estate. A book of the meta-user shortcomings and the need for restoration and further up-keep, through the most sympathetic argument and persuasion. From the highest poetic and contemplative to the lowest but real trivial, the gravel flat roof…Superceding all of the above is the book's exquisite photography. Some shots taken from levels no lay viewer can hardly experience, while other shots are intimate and  personal as only the owner and his close guests had the joy to enjoy. The textures of  pictures , the included drawings and the text , both in visual  as well in meaning and suggestion depth , are as poetic as any great poem or haiku could ever reach. In philosophical terms the book  is an assembly of “Logos” and Cosmotheory : of the architect (Philip Johnson), of the men who

visited and were affected by it (Toshio Nakamura), of the photographers , of the publisher, of the draftsmen who drew the architectural drawings, of the publisher who produced it, of the reader who by reading or just going through its pages  becomes part of the building’s history , the closest to the building a lay person could ever be.

In this sense, the BOOK , the “Glass House” , is , I believe , superior even to any museum that presents works of Art; because the commentary of the art work is usually missing from a museum’s presentation, and the visitor can hardly be said to be able to take away with him the whole, unless perhaps a catalogue of the works presented. A “Library” of books on a particular Art work, may perhaps be close to what I suggest for anyone who has visited it , and perhaps more so, for those who have not visited the work. So,  I view the book the “Glass house” as a total museum, a work of Architecture without walls, an Art work that can be carried home, always ready to please the reader with a repeated visit to the artifact, a personal contemplation and enjoyment, even a further interpretation under new circumstances of life  and events.

Let us now come to the “Glass box” with reference to museums, actual recent museums.

Many years after Philip Johnson and after many years of negativity regarding the glass curtain walled boxes that filled many centers of our cities,  Tadao Ando, perhaps extending his experience with glass and the unique atmosphere he created in his series of glass boxes at the nearby Fort Worth Art Museum,  had also proposed  a glass box cage on the top of his award winning competition entry  for the not yet built Pinnault museum. Almost simulataneously Bernard Tschumi , who I have reasons to believe was one of the consultants of Pinnault for his museum, won the competition for the New museum of the Acropolis, featuring a similar glass box , a similar tripartite parti, strikingly resembling in whole to the Ando Museum. The Tschumi glass box had the same proportions and the same orientation to the Parthenon, just 300 meters away. The interior had exactly the same number of columns as the ancient temple (8x17 colums), holding cantilevered steel structure behind a lightwell ,enveloped by a “High tech” glass wall at the perimeter, as a means to permit what he called “Dialogue with the centuries”.

We all know that attempts to copy the Parthenon have been made repeatedly, with more famous the one in Memphis. But what about attempts for its literal interpretation or “STIMULATION” by other materials and other means of the classical monument of the Greeks ?  I had personally thought this was done by Kahn at the Kimbell, even though it is a building with Roman visual overtones (vault), and yet the epitome of the best its time and technology could produce, if you may permit me to use the definition of the classic by Tatarkiewitch.  The Design strategy and the conception of the new Tschumi museum in Athens , are really nothing else in my opinion, but the dressing by means of new materials, of a shallow “Literal interpretation” of a building , strongly promoted by propaganda (by the promoting government and its “cultural mandarins”) and public relations (enhanced by the architect's superb mastery of virtual reality and the staging of public presentations on international scale. i.e presentation in the Greek embassy in Washington D.C Oct. 18 , 2007) rather than conceptual and creative dynamics. It is an New Interior meant to recreate the exterior feeling a viewer would get had he been able to see the real monument and experience the freeze, particularly those portions of the freeze now at the British museum . These are the pieces, known as “the Elgin Marbles” that  were ripped off by Lord Elgin the British amabassador to Istanbul  in early 18^th century, stored at first in his mansion in Scottland and sold  after much wait and  negotiations as to the price,  to the British government. Lord Byron, the famous Phillelene British poet who visited Greece twice and died in Mesolonghi ,was the first among the world people to lament and condemn the act , only as a real Englishman he was very careful  to blame it to Scotland  the native land of Lord Elgin . And it is a building that hardly thinks of the effect its  bulk and proportions cause to the neighboring buildings, its immediate site and the concept of harmony and fit of the place, the concept of the Atticos method of Design , the Attikos tropos of Building as the ancients used to call it ; whereby the main building in a holy precinct was first seen through a particular pole of entry, i.e the point of exiting to the holy precinct of the Parthenon through the Propylaea of Mnysikles, rather than frontally via the axes of the Rennaissance. The New Museum can be easily criticized  on almost any “basic design level”, on almost any basic “functional level”(has really no parking, no access for the tourist busses etc.),it is difficult to access by the elderly and the handicapped, has no relevance to the place and its uniqueness (there is a wealth of dense and massive columns that will dwarf the statues, most, particularly the maidens (kores) ,  in almost human size) , which remind one more of the columns of Karnak rather the elegance of the Doric. And almost close to completion, it is a glass box litteral interpretive design of the proportions and orientation of the original, that eventually becomes the battle ground for programmatic overruns, calling for the destruction and tearing down of two neoclassic buildings nearby, on the circumferential artery of the Acropolis, the Dinonysiou Areopagitou street, one of which was proclaimed only two decades ago a building worth preserving (Historic monument). Now , the architect , who once was the Dean of a Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Historic preservation, demands after the competition and in unfairness to everyone else who made up their own design decisions with the understanding that these two buildings would be always preserved , the destruction of the two historic buildings, in order to offer as he argues, a better unobstructed  view to the Parthenon. Destruction of two important buildings of a unique historic street, by a former Dean of  Historic preservation???

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Contemporary Athenias, not unlike their ancient predecessors, discussing and criticizing in public,  mobilized against the demolition of the two historic buildings on 17-19 Dionysiou Areopagitou Street.               (Sept.2007, Photo A.C.A)

Here let me add, that the majority of the lay populace, believe ,the demand for the demolition of the two buildings was generated by the need   to give better view to the people of the second floor restaurant and to the canopy deck converted to a restaurant veranda – all this an afterthought design decision, something that was never shown in the competition awarded entry. I simply think all this is definitely unethical, and I have already proposed by letters to the Greek press that the two buildings be retained , and eventually integrated to the functions of the Museum, the one as the official residence of the occasional director of the museum , the other as a hostel for the museum resident scholars, local  and international.

This museum, is probably one of the projects that had one of the longest histories in its making. And perhaps one that has created more local literature and promotion than any other I am aware off. For over thirty years it was the subject of political exploitation and vote bating by the various governments, as well as one of the most glamorous cases of bad programming and retractions . Four competitions were promoted , two panhellenic (which produced no first or second prize-so that in their absence the promoter would legally avoid construction) , one international (which eventually produced a first prize award  to the team of Nicoletti and  Vassareli , architects of the Vatican…) and was eventually withdrawn as  new circumstances arose (the building of a Metro line and some new excavation finds on the small and inappropriate site),  and a fourth  competition, by invitation . This final competition, exploited the public feeling for the return of the “Marbles” by promising a new museum to house the marbles, as one of the arguments of the British Museum for the no return was the absence of appropriate space in the Athens polluted skyline ….

I offer this piece to anyone who may want to see the whole picture or may desire to acquire a more inclusive background picture. The celestial Parthenon, will definitely outlast the new Museum, whose "glass box" will never transcend to the celestial heights of  Johnson's Glass box  through the Book of Nakamura!

Anthony C.Antoniades 

Written : 31 October 2007  / published April 2009

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