Social History Of The Brick House

Andy Warhol in the guest house of Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, CT, winter 1964-65. Photograph by David McCabe

Join architectural historians Alice Friedman and Timothy Rohan for a conversation about the cultural significance and queer social history of the recently restored Brick House. This program includes a reception and an hour-long, self-guided tour of the site.

Event Schedule
3:00pm: Self-guided Tour
4:00pm: Conversation between Alice Friedman and Timothy Rohan
5:00pm: Reception

Alice Friedman is the Grace Slack McNeil Professor Emerita of American Art at Wellesley College. She is the author of numerous books and articles on gender, sexuality, and the social history of architecture, including House and Household in Elizabethan England: Wollaton Hall and the Willoughby Family (University of Chicago Press, 1989), Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History (Abrams, 1998; Yale paperback 2007) and American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern Architecture (Yale, 2010). Her next book, All That Glamour and Loneliness: Max Ewing’s Queer New York, 1923-1934, is forthcoming from Princeton University press in 2025.

Timothy M. Rohan is associate professor and chair of the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the author of The Architecture of Paul Rudolph (Yale, 2014), now in its third edition. He has written numerous articles for academic journals and newspapers and magazines. This talk expands upon his article, “The Meaning of an Anecdote: Wright, Johnson and Rudolph at the Glass House,” from Rethinking Frank Lloyd Wright: New Perspectives on an Enduring Legacy (UVA Press, 2023). His new research explores queerness through an investigation of lifestyle and residential interiors in 1970s Manhattan. Rohan works closely with preservation groups, such as Historic New England and Docomomo.

Glass House Presents is an ongoing series of live events that extends the site’s historic role as a gathering place for artists, architects, and other creative minds.