The Glass House that Phillip Johnson is famous for is certainly not Earth Sheltered
When you are planning to build an earth sheltered home, you tend to keep your eyes open for similar structures. Tomorrow I will try to give an actual status update, but for now I will just take a couple minutes to show you the most recent example of earth sheltered architecture that I stumbled upon (it was actually built in 1965).
Perhaps you have heard of Phillip Johnson, the architect famous for his “Glass House”. If you want more info you can do a quick internet search or pick up this book. You may even want to tour his estate next time you are in Connecticut for a couple hours.
What I didn’t know until recently was that he also designed and build an underground painting gallery. To call it “earth sheltered” seems like a bit of an understatement. It was inspired by a visit to the Treasury of Atreus, an ancient (~1250BC) underground tomb that was a marvel of bronze age Greek engineering and stood as the largest dome in the world for over 1000 years. Like a tomb, it was the opposite of the glass house, which made it much better for displaying paintings.
The Tomb known as the “Treasure of Atreus” inspired Johnson
The Gallery wouldn’t make a very good home. Unlike the Glass House, it has no windows.
Right next door was the sculpture gallery. Wouldn’t it have been great if these two buildings were joined as one?
And where did Johnson sleep? Not in the glass house with its early morning sun. He slept in the brick house, the ceilings of which, should appeal to any earth sheltered home builder.