E
1950
Rockefeller Guest House, New York

While organizing the Anni Albers Textiles exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Philip Johnson selected one of the fabrics for a guest house he was designing for Blanchette Rockefeller, a wealthy philanthropist and patron of the museum. The guest house was used as a private showcase for Rockefeller’s modern art collection and served as a gathering place for museum events. Johnson and Rockefeller selected Albers’s drapery material constructed with vertical white and copper warps woven with cream-coloured chenille to create a “curtain-wall.” It was installed along the floor-to-ceiling glass wall that divided the main entertaining space from the central garden. The velvety chenille helped soften the effect of the glass and white brick in the space, while the copper thread contributed a subtle shimmer.