The Philip Johnson Glass House aims for the 47-acre campus to become a center-point for the preservation of modern architecture, landscape, and art, as well as a canvas for inspiration, experimentation and cultivation honoring the legacy of Philip Johnson (1906–2005) and David Whitney (1939–2005). Philip Johnson was a recognized modernist architect, having been an associate of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the recipient of the first Pritzker Architecture Prize, and the founder of MoMA's Department of Architecture and Design. David Whitney was a curator, collector, passionate advocate of contemporary art, and Johnson's life partner. The Glass House, designed 19451947 and completed 1949, grew from the inspirational legacy of the German Glasarchitektur drawings of the 1920s. With walls made of glass, permitting the exterior view to inundate the interior, the house speaks to minimalism, geometry, proportion, reflectivity, and opacity versus transparency. The site includes numerous other structures designed by Johnson, including painting and sculpture studios, a lake pavilion, and the so-called brick house.
The site offers tours and an informative media installation.