The Glass House, Philip Johnson’s minimal masterpiece, was opened to the public in June; the importance of this cannot be overstated. Not only is it an extraordinary house set in an extraordinary landscape, but it may ultimately lead us — as a nation — to a better understanding of the importance of modernism at the mid-century.

Johnson, who died in 2005, built the house in 1949 and a half-century later deeded it to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It will be operated both as a historic site and as a study center, with tours through the early fall.

The house sits on 47 acres of rolling suburban countryside in New Canaan, Conn., the focal point of what grew into a kind of campus of a dozen other buildings with a variety of purposes; many of them house Johnson’s art collection. Its walls are indeed glass panels, one-quarter-inch thick and supported by black steel. The interior is open except at the center, where a wide brick column houses the bathroom and frames a fireplace. It is stunning and unforgettable.

Johnson was part of a small cadre of architects — they are often known as the Harvard five, though there were more of them and they weren’t all Harvard-educated — who built experimental, modern houses in New Canaan. The houses are an amazing sight, some carved into improbable terrain on rocky outcroppings and others delicately nestled into meadowlands, in metal, glass, wood and stone. Even today, there are about 90 such houses there, though at one point there were many more. Despite the best efforts of New Canaan’s preservationists, spurred by the architects Richard Bergmann and John Black Lee, far too many have been demolished already.

Thus an initiative titled Preserve the Modern, based at the Glass House. Preserve the Modern will be at once local, regional and national, both educational and action-oriented. An initial effort — in conjunction with the state’s Commission on Culture and Tourism and the Trust for Historic Preservation — will be the New Canaan Modern Homes Survey, which will include biographies of the architects, illustrations, analysis and a glossary of terms that pertain to modern architecture.

Preserve the Modern has an array of partners ranging from the Yale School of Architecture and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design to Sotheby’s and Tiffany’s, as well as Art Basel, and is already linked to a number of organizations aimed at preserving America’s early modern architectural legacy.

One such organization is DoCoMoMo (the short-form name of the International Working Party for Documentation and Conservation of Building Sites and Neighborhoods of the Modern Movement), which has long been a vigilant watchdog over the architecture of the recent past. Recently, a group of architects and academics (Jean-Francois Lejeune, Virginia Kohen, Enrique Madia and Allan Shulman) founded a South Florida chapter of DoCoMoMo, which will officially launch in the fall.

In South Florida, the preservation of what we often call Miami Modern or MiMo architecture has come in fits and starts. Miami Beach has two historic districts, both along the ocean, and one neighborhood conservation district, the Gilbert Fein District — named after the architect responsible for most of the buildings there — just off West Avenue. But there are still large swaths of the city, mostly in North Beach, where the postwar buildings are not covered by any sort of protective ordinance; a move to designate a National Historic District in North Beach is underway, but it would lend more status than security to the architecture.

The Broward Trust — a valiant guardian of that county’s considerable mid-century buildings — achieved a major victory last month when the Fort Lauderdale City Commission voted down a proposed high rise condominium project that would have demolished the Americana Motor Inn, a tour-de-force in concrete. The building is not yet safe but is in less imminent danger.

But other modernist buildings have not won that reprieve. Last year, one of the architect George Reed’s masterpieces, a house in Coconut Grove that has been featured in several architectural books, was sold and then altered beyond recognition by its new owners. The Miami Marine Stadium, a major landmark completed in 1964, was damaged in Hurricane Andrew, and the city of Miami has never repaired it, allowing it instead to languish. And these are just two examples among the many residential, civic and commercial buildings that form our postwar architectural heritage.

In even greater jeopardy are the many superb houses erected in what might be called the ‘’New Canaan era'’ and with just as much significance. It is a tricky matter — especially in South Florida — to designate individual houses, but it is not impossible to establish preservation zones or conservation overlays that would help keep these houses from demolition or insensitive renovations. At the very least, the houses need to be documented, studied and recorded for posterity.

The Glass House’s Preserve the Modern initiative could pave the way for a stronger understanding not just of the importance of this architecture, but also lead us to better ways to preserve an important body of work before it is lost. Far too many buildings remain in jeopardy — under-appreciated and most important, unprotected.

source : www.miamiherald.com