Beyond the glass house icons: graphic documentation of the correlations between Bo Bardi’s and Johnson’s studios

The importance of the glass houses in the history of architecture may be traced back to the way architecture became linked to steel and glass during the Industrial Revolution. The renowned Crystal Palace was the first monument of the innovation age, constructed of plate glass. It was built in 1851 in Hyde Park to host the Great Exhibition and then rebuilt at Sydenham, on top of a hill. Later, in 1914, Le Corbusier created the “Maison Dom-Ino,” a global model that displayed the foundations and has been declared the prototype for a modern glass house. Undoubtedly it was Mies van der Rohe that had a pivotal role in the evolution of the modern glass house building in the Chicago suburbs in 1945, is set in a semi-rural micro-environment surrounded by nature his Farnsworth House. Hence, the object of study of this research are the glass houses designed by Lina Bo Bardi in 1949, São Paulo, and Philip Johnson, also designed in 1948 but located in New Canaan, Connecticut. Given the research’s scope, its main objectives are to understand the correlations between Lina Bo Bardi’s and Philip Johnson’ studios and their homes. The chosen methodological procedure for this research is organized on digital analyses based on different sources: original drawings, on site documentation and 3D scanning campaign, which were inserted in this paper in order to properly document the case study’s geometries. It is expected that this research contributes to understand the minor works of these famous architects, completing the knowledge about their whole professional approach.