©RICHARD LESLIE SCHULMAN
The Glass House, the 49-acre campus designed by Philip Johnson in New Canaan, Connecticut, has appointed Hilary Lewis, a scholar of the architect, as its new chief curator and creative director. She will begin in her new position on January 17.
Lewis has published two books on Johnson and his work, Philip Johnson: The Architect in His Own Words (1994) and The Architecture of Philip Johnson (2002), and organized an exhibition on Johnson in 2008 at the Kreeger Museum in Washington D.C. The exhibition, titled “Philip Johnson: Architecture as Art,” brought together over 100 objects that the artist made during the final 15 years of his career.
Lewis was named Philip Johnson Scholar in 2007 by the Glass House, and has previously been on the site’s advisory council.
“Having sat side-by-side with Johnson for years, I feel confident that what would honor his and David Whitney’s memory most would be for the property to evolve further as a center for the appreciation of architecture, design, and art not just as a museum of Johnson and Whitney’s lives in New Canaan,” Lewis said in a statement. She worked with Johnson from 1992 until his death in 2005.
The Glass House, which became a National Historic Landmark in 1997 and opened to the public in April 2007, encompasses 14 different structures, including the namesake Glass House (1949) as well as a collection of 20th-century painting and sculpture.