Glass House, Modernist house in Morumbi, São Paulo, Brazil

The Glass House is a two-storey modernist house in Morumbi, São Paulo, built 1950–51 to Lina Bo Bardi's design. Its upper volume is a glazed rectangular box raised on slender dark columns, with a flat white underside forming an open ground level; closely spaced pale vertical curtains hang behind dark mullions. The lower level sits behind and below, with a white wall and a dark horizontal window band, and an exterior metal staircase with open treads rises toward the upper floor among trees.

Lina Bo Bardi and Pietro Maria Bardi arrived in Brazil from Italy in 1946, and the house she designed for them was built between 1950 and 1951, the first house in the Jardim Morumbi subdivision on land from the Fazenda Chá Muller Carioba. The couple lived there for more than forty years; she died in 1992, he in 1999. Condephaat listed it in 1987, and it now houses the Instituto Lina Bo Bardi e Pietro Maria Bardi.

The name comes from the large glass facade visible from the street. The house was a meeting place for intellectuals; filmmaker Glauber Rocha was among those who gathered there. Since 2003 it has housed the Instituto Lina Bo Bardi e Pietro Maria Bardi, which holds part of the couple's collections and organizes exhibitions, lectures and visits.

Visits must be arranged in advance since the house is protected as a heritage site and only open at specific times. It helps to check opening hours beforehand and allow enough time to explore the building and grounds properly.

The house was the first built in the Jardim Morumbi subdivision, on land that was part of the Fazenda de Chá Muller Carioba. Lina Bo Bardi planted much of the vegetation in the roughly 7,000 m² garden herself, and over time a path formed through it.