Philip Johnson’s The Glass House
Jaipur, India
I have been remiss a few times in my life. When I have missed an opportunity to make a photograph that matters, my mind sits in purgatory for a very long time.
It haunts me that I did not take control of the moment and stop the bus I was riding in Jaipur, India.
The bus raced along the river. I heard only the river’s calm as the water rushed past me. All keys of sound from within, were frozen.
I saw a kneeling woman dressed in a bright full red Sari. She bowed several times in the direction of the dead figure leaning against a tree wrapped like a mummy in white material. The tree appropriately and respectfully braced the body before either it was laid bare into the rushing waters or enkindled for the wishes and demands of the gods.
I merely pressed my face to the bus window. My mind knew that the rituals end was near. My heart broke. I could neither save a life, nor fulfill my desires as a photographer. I only had to whisper. “Stop the bus” before the body disappeared into the god’s house.
“Our house is a very, very, very fine house”. Written by Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Buildings represent the transformation of the urban environment. But a house has stories: I seem to remember Joan Didion suggesting that beyond the white pristine picket fence of a suburban house, secrets may live.
Philip Johnson
When I first drove up to Philip Johnson’s “Glass House”, I thought about the naked ghosts who might been seen posing, strolling or dancing behind the glass walls.
I have walked straight into history’s architecture for decades. Sometimes the significant stories and myths become like blinders to the realities of the special. One becomes so mesmerized by the folklore that it’s becomes difficult to see the photograph that needs to be made; and so I shoot!
And then just maybe, there was Philip sitting in the corner with a bit of revealing Cheshire Smile.
The Glass House and Philip Johnson in one frame is probably an anomaly in modern architecture history. That kind of matters. What matters most is that the house became one of the most significant examples of a Modernist design in the twentieth-century. What embraces me is the knowledge that I can die knowing that for a fleeting moment, I danced with history.
My decades of photography have taught me that merely a handful of personalities become synonymous with greatness. Imagination gets the better of you. You start to imagine the worlds that came before you. What is it like to be grand, and adored. The company that mingles in those circles are fascinating creatures. Like with Philip Johnson, sometimes the myths overtake your vision. To be a photographer and separate myth from reality for audiences eyes is also a task to deal with.
Fame comes in many shapes and sizes. All I can do is shoot and hope history remembers the pictures not for what they become, but for what they were when I made them.
When I landed in Rio de Janeiro I had many agendas for my photography. I hoped that I would carve out enough time to photograph Oscar Niemeyer’s home: Casa das Canoas: Like Johnson’s house, this Niemeyer was and is Modernist history.
Oscar Niemeyer’s Casa das Canoas
Upon arriving at das Canoas I felt a bit like Stanley and Livingstone. My assistant carried my bags as I pushed forward through one of the most lush tropical gardens I have ever seen.
Like all adventurers the word is “behold”. My god I was stunned to see the Brazilian coast and the house sandwiched together like a Jerry Uelsmann photograph. If only Oscar was sitting poolside drawing his plans for the brilliance that das Canoas would become.
Brazil is not Connecticut. I imagine exotic personalities in bikinis and dangling long black cigarette holders. I imagine the dance that exist in clubs and along the sands of Rio. Exotic travel can manifest many real hallucinations.
As for Oscar’s portrait I realized that in his Copacabana studio.
I have photographed a great number of Kengo Kuma’s architectural structures. But here was something unique to the landscape. I could hear Ennio Morricone’s The Mission (Gabriel's Oboe) - YouTube. I didn’t remember inhaling until I exhaled. I realized I had found a playground for my photography. Maybe this was something more, like a dream. Madhatters and Wolverines might have stepped through the trees and into the residence before nightfall.
Kengo Kuma Architecture
I could hear the calm through the leaves of a thousand trees that encircled the house. There could be no discordant sounds. The conversation could only be limited to whispers. I can’t imagine fame nor exotica. But I could see period representation possibly from the Victorians through the Edwardians. Just maybe hallucinogens might have been passed around the table before dinner time. There are only a few architects like Kengo Kuma whose designs transport your mind to imaginary places that are real.