The programming requirements for the Kreeger residence included several components: 1) to display their collection of 19^th and 20^th century paintings and sculpture, 2) to create a large recital hall for playing music (piano, violin) for themselves and for visitors, 3) to design residential living spaces that would provide privacy, views and light, 4) to develop family recreational areas to include a pool, cabanas and tennis courts, and 5) to provide separate living quarters for the support staff. The final building is composed of 24,000 square feet.

The Kreeger is an excellent example of Johnson's references to the past by incorporating a modernist vocabulary. Johnson's earlier travels to Italy, Greece, the Middle East, and Egypt influenced the design, scale, proportion and materials of the Kreeger. The approach to the Kreeger residence is via a grand and circular forecourt as shown in the photograph to the right. Here Johnson provided a clearly defined vista of the building's entry while concealing the south garage and private gardens to the north of the site. The museum is sheathed in travertine (a limestone similarly used at the Colosseum) from Travertine, Itay. Above the entry is a balustrade composed of a slab of travertine supported by solid traverting "drums". On the either side of the entrance there are two-story arches filled with either travertine or glass windows that provide a rhythmic movement across the site.

Once inside, the travertine continues and surrounds the Great Recital Hall. The modular system of 22 x 22 x 11 feet becomes quite evident throughout all of the internal spaces. Within the Great Hall, three modules in length and two modules in height, three saucer domes are elevated over the lunette windows to a ceiling height of 25 feet. These windows are filled with cork balls to help filter light, provide acoustical qualities and conjure up references to the latticework of Islamic mashrebeeyeh. These modules, of same height and proportion of the Great Hall, continue outward to the private east exterior elevation and Sculpture Terrace of the building. Here, however, Philip Johnson removed the infill of the travertine and glass to reveal the building's structure; it also opens to views of the sloping site and a magnificent pool surrounded by a marching colonnade reminiscent of Roman acqueducts of villas.


To focus our procession in a vertical and angled direction, Philip Johnson included a bronze intertwined balustrade/stair railing that extends from the main staircase of the lower through the second levels of the building. These polished screens were designed by the artist Edward Meshekoff who also designed a similar promenade for Johnson's New York State Theater (now the David H. Koch Theater) at Lincoln Center.

 

The mechanical system is quietly recessed throughout the building. In the Great Hall, thin horizontal slots, between the wall carpet and travertine module, provide supply and return for the building. In the residential spaces, the grilles become part of the anodized aluminum frames that secure the window panes. Jaros, Baum & Bolles were the mechanical engineers for the building.
 

In 1943, Philip Johnson received his professional degree in architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and looked to the works of Mies van der Rohe for inspiration. According to Benjamin Forgey, Mies was “the avatar of the honed modernist aesthetic Johnson had labeled as the ‘International Style’ back in 1932. One of Johnson’s first buildings, a cubical, glass-walled house he built for himself on his spacious estate in suburban New Canaan, Connecticut, was a straightforward act of homage to the master, and most of the designs he would produce well into the 1950s – for private homes, museums, universities and corporate offices - were strongly Miesan in flavor.”  

 

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Philip Johnson talked of how “his arches represent the breaking” from the influence of Mies van der Rohe. These projects, as well as the Kreeger, all included prominent arches within their design and at varying scales: the Kneses Tifereth Israel Synagogue, Port Chester, NY 1956; the Philip Johnson Pavilion, New Canaan, CT 1962; and the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln 1963.

 

Richard Foster, Johnson’s colleague at the time of the Kreeger residence design and construction, was heavily involved in the building’s construction documentation and construction administration. He traveled to Italy for the selection of the travertine and completed change orders until the building’s occupancy in July 1967. In Philip Johnson’s monograph entitled Architecture 1946-1965, he dedicated his book to Richard Foster.