Philip Johnson

See Phillip Johnson for others with a similar name

1933 Portrait of Philip Johnson by Carl Van Vechten

Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906– January 25, 2005) was an influential American architect.

With his thick, round-framed glasses, Johnson was the most recognizable figure in American architecture for decades. Part icon, part oracle, part stand-up comic, Johnson was a reliable source of wit and provocation.

In 1946, he founded the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA and later (1978), as a trustee, he was awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the first Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 1979. He was a student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

When Johnson died in January 2005, he was survived by his long time partner, David Whitney. Whitney died only a few months later, on June 12, 2005, at the age of 66.

Early life

Johnson was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He attended the Hackley School, in Tarrytown, New York, and then studied at Harvard as an undergraduate, where he focused on history and philosophy, particularly the work of the Pre-Socratic philosophers. Johnson interrupted his education with several extended trips to Europe. These trips became the pivotal moment of his education; he visited Chartres, the Parthenon, and many other ancient monuments, becoming increasingly fascinated with architecture. [1]

Then in 1928 Johnson met the Bauhaus architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who was at the time designing the German Pavilion for the Barcelona exhibition of 1929. The meeting was a revelation for Johnson and formed the basis for a lifelong relationship of both collaboration and competition. The pupil had finally found the master. Johnson during this period was an admirer of the German right wing and espoused anti-Semitic political views. Later in his career, however, he would repudiate his early political views.

Johnson returned from Germany as a proselytizer for the new architecture. Touring Europe more comprehensively with his friends Alfred H Barr Jr and Henry-Russell Hitchcock to examine firsthand recent trends in architecture, the three assembled their discoveries as the landmark show "The International Style: Architecture Since 1922" at the Museum of Modern Art, in 1932. The show was profoundly influential and is seen as the introduction of modern architecture to the American public. It introduced such pivotal architects as Le Corbusier, Gropius, and Mies van der Rohe. The exhibition was also notable for a controversy: architect Frank Lloyd Wright withdrew his entries in pique that he was not more prominently featured.

As critic Pater Blake has stated, the importance of this show in shaping American architecture in the century "cannot be overstated." In the book accompanying the show, coauthored with Hitchcock, argued that the new modern style maintained three formal principles: 1. an emphasis on architectural volume over mass (planes rather than solidity) 2. a rejection of symmetry and 3. rejection of applied decoration. The definition of the movement as a "style" with distinct formal characteristics has been seen by some critics as downplaying the social and political bent that many of the European practitioners shared.

Johnson continued to work as a proponent of modern architecture, using the Museum of Modern Art as a bully pulpit. He arranged for Le Corbusier's first visit to the United States in 1935, then worked to bring Mies and Marcel Breuer to the US as emigres.

During the Great Depression, Johnson resigned his post at MoMA to try his hand at agrarian populist politics, and to try his hand at journalism. His enthusiasm centered on the critique of the liberal welfare state, whose "failure" seemed to be much in evidence during the 1930's. As a correspondent Johnson observed the Nuremberg Rallies in Germany, he covered the invasion of Poland in 1939. The invasion proved the breaking point in Johnson's interest in journalism or politics -- he returned to enlist in the US Army. After a couple of self-admittedly undistinguished years in uniform, Johnson returned to the Harvard Graduate School of Design to finally pursue his ultimate career of architect.

The Glass House

His early influence as a practicing architect was his use of glass; his masterpiece was a "Glass House" he designed as his own residence in New Canaan, Connecticut, a profoundly influential work (1949). The concept of a Glass House set in a landscape with views as its real “walls” had been developed by many authors in the German Glasarchitektur drawings of the 1920’s, and already sketched in initial form by Johnon's mentor Mies. The building is an essay in minimal structure, geometry, proportion, and the effects of transparency and reflection.

The house sits at the edge of a crest in Johnson’s estate overlooking a pond. It has large sheets of glass on all four sides from ceiling to floor. The floor, of brick, is not flush with the ground but sits about 10 inches or so up. The steel that defines the glass and that holds up the roof (built of wood) was painted a very dark grey. The interior is completely open with the space divided by low walnut cabinets; a brick cylinder contains the bathroom and is the only object to reach floor to ceiling. Johnson built several structures in his estate. Fifty feet in front of the Brick House there is a guest house, rectangular in shape and completely enclosed in brick except for some small round windows at the rear. It contains, apart from a bathroom, a single bedroom with a fake vaulted ceiling with golden-hued wallpaper and shag carpet. There is also a museum with an innovative viewing mechanism of rotating walls to hold paintings, as well as a sky-lit sculpture gallery. One of the last structures Johnson built on the estate was a library-study and a reception building, the latter, reddish in color and of curving walls.

The Seagram Building

After completing several houses in the idiom of Mies and Breuer, Johnson joined Mies in the design of the 39 story Seagram Building (1956). This collaboration resulted in the remarkable bronze and glass tower on Park Avenue, whose strength of proportion, elegance of material, and constructional rigor led the New York Times to judge it the most important building of the twentieth century.

Completing the Seagram Building with Mies also decisively marked marked a shift in Johnson's career. After this accomplishment Johnson's practice enlarged as projects came in from the public realm -- such as coordinating the master plan of Lincoln Center and designing the New York State Theater of that complex. Meanwhile, Johnson began to grow impatient with the orthodoxies of the International Style he had championed.

Later Buildings

Although startling when constructed, the glass and steel tower (indeed many idioms of the modern movement) had by the 1960's become commonplace the world over. He eventually rejected much of the metallic appearance of earlier International Style buildings, and began designing spectacular, crystalline structures uniformly sheathed in glass. Many of these became instant icons, such as PPG Place in Pittsburgh and the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California.

A model of the Glass House on display at MOMA in NYC

Chapel on Thanks-Giving Square in Dallas

Puerta de Europa in Madrid

The New York State Theater at Lincoln Center, seen from the Lincoln Center Plaza.

Williams Tower in Houston

IDS Center in Minneapolis, one of Johnson's most instantly recognizable works.

Johnson's architectural work is a balancing act between two dominant trends in post-war American art: the more "serious" movement of Minimalism, and the more populist movement of Pop art. His best work has aspects of both movements. Johnson's personal collections reflected this dichotomy, as he introduced artists such as Rothko to the Museum of Modern Art as well as Warhol. Straddling between these two camps, his work was seen by purists of either side as always too contaminated or influenced by the other.

From 1967 to 1991 Johnson collaborated with John Burgee, his most productive period certainly by the measure of scale -- he became known at this time as builder of iconic office towers.

The AT&T Building in Manhattan, now the Sony Building, was completed in 1984 and was immediately controversial for its neo-Georgian pediment (Chippendale top). At the time, it was seen as provocation on a grand scale: crowning a Manhattan skyscraper with a shape echoing a historical wardobe top defied every precept of the modernist aesthetic: historical pattern had been effectively outlawed among architects for years. In retrospect other critics have seen the AT&T Building as the first Postmodernist statement, necessary in the context of modernism's aesthetic cul-de-sac.

Johnson's archive, including architectural drawings, project records, and other papers, is held by the Drawings and Archives Department of Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University.

Johnson's notable works include:

• The Chapel of St. Basil University of St. Thomas (Houston).
• John de Menil House, Houston (1950)
• The Seagram Building, in collaboration with Mies van der Rohe, New York 1956.
• Four Seasons Restaurant, New York City (1959),
• Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas (1961, expansion in 2001)
• New York State Theater (home of the New York City Opera and New York City Ballet) at Lincoln Center (with Richard Foster; 1964),
• The Kreeger Museum in Washington D.C. (with Richard Foster; 1967),
• The main campus mall at the University of Saint Thomas in Houston, Texas
• Elmer Holmes Bobst Library of New York University (1967-1972)
• The IDS Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota (1972)
• South Texas Art Museum in Corpus Christi, Texas (1972)
• Boston Public Library (1973)
• The Museum of Art at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York.
• Fort Worth Water Gardens (1974)
• Thanks-Giving Square in Dallas, Texas (1976)
• The Neuberger Museum of Art at SUNY Purchase College,
• Evangelist Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California (1980)
• Metro-Dade Cultural Center in Miami, Florida, 1982
• The Republic Bank Center in Houston, Texas (1981-1984) now rebranded Bank of America Center
• The Transco Tower, now rebranded Williams Tower, Houston, (1983)
• the Cleveland Playhouse in Cleveland, Ohio (extension) (1983)
• PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1984)
• Puerta de Europa, Madrid, Spain (1991-1995) John Burgee Architects, Philip Johnson Consultant
• 190 South LaSalle in Chicago John Burgee Architects, Philip Johnson Consultant
• 191 Peachtree Tower, Atlanta, Georgia John Burgee Architects, Philip Johnson Consultant
• 101 California Street, San Francisco
• University of St Thomas St Basil Chapel (with John Manley, Architect) 1992
• Das Amerikan Business Center, Berlin, Germany 1994.
• Visitor's Pavilion, New Canaan CT 1994.
• Turning Point, Vienna Austria 1996.

Quotes

• "I would rather stay in Chartres Cathedral with the nearest john two blocks away, than spend a single night in a Harvard dorm."
• "Architecture is surely not the design of space, certainly not the massing or organization of volumes. These are ancillary to the main point, which is the organization of procession. Architecture exists in time."
• "The job of the architect today is to create beautiful buildings. That's all." 1965.
• On architects being known for long life spans: "Of course they live long -- they have a chance to act out all their aggressions."
• "To be in the presence of a great work of architecture is such a statisfaction that you can go hungry for days. To create a feeling such as mine in Chartres Cathedral when I was 13 is the aim of architecture."
• "Early unsuccessess shouldn't bother anybody because it happens to absolutely everybody."

Johnson wrote (Heyer, 1966):

The painters have every advantage over us today...Besides being able to tear up their failures—we never can seem to grow ivy fast enough—their materials cost them nothing. They have no committees of laymen telling them what to do. They have no deadlines, no budgets. We are all sickeningly familiar with the final cuts to our plans at the last moment. Why not take out the landscaping, the retaining walls, the colonnades? The building would be just as useful and much cheaper. True, an architect leads a hard life—for an artist.

...Comfort is not a function of beauty... purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful...sooner or later we will fit our buildings so that they can be used...where form comes from I don't know, but it has nothing at all to do with the functional or sociological aspects of our architecture.

External links

• Academy of Achievement Profile
• Obituary
• Academy of Achievement Biography
• Academy of Achievement Interview
• Academy of Achievement Gallery

References/Further reading

• Schulze, Franz. Philip Johnson: Life and Work, Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1996.
• "Extending the Legacy" Alexandra Lange article on the preservation of the Glass House, from the November 2006 issue of Metropolis magazine.
• Philip Johnson article at Great Buildings Online. Retrieved Sep. 27, 2003.
• Philip Johnson bio on the Pritzker Architecture Prize website. Retrieved Sep. 27, 2003.
• Philip Johnson on NewsHour (1996). Retrieved Sep. 27, 2003.
• Heyer, Paul, ed. (1966). Architects on Architecture: New Directions in America, p. 279. New York: Walker and Company.
• "Philip Johnson: Dean of American Architects," Academy of Achievement (Feb. 28, 1992). (Biography, interview, audio, and photographs.)
• Johnson is mentioned in the song Thru These Architect's Eyes on the album 1.outside by David Bowie.

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