The passing of an era..
Leading U.S. architect dies at 98
PHILIP C. JOHNSON'S AMBITION: TO BUILD THE `GREATEST ROOM'
New York Times | Paul Goldberger
Philip Johnson, at once the elder statesman and the enfant terrible of American architecture, died Tuesday on the compound surrounding the Glass House, the transparent building he built in New Canaan, Conn., said David Whitney, his companion of 45 years. He was 98.
Often considered the dean of American architects, Johnson was known less for his individual buildings than for his presence on the architectural scene, which he served as a combination godfather, gadfly, scholar, patron, critic, curator and cheerleader.
His long career was a study in contradictions. He first became famous as an impassioned advocate of modern architecture. But what fascinated him most was the idea of the new, and once he had helped establish modern architecture in the United States, he moved on, experimenting with decorative classicism, embracing the reuse of historical elements that became known as post-modernism, and finally returning again to modernism.
Johnson's own architecture received mixed reviews and frequently startled both the public and his fellow architects. Because of his frequent changes of style, he was often accused of pandering to fashion and of designing buildings that were facile and shallow. Yet he created several buildings, including the Glass House, the sculpture garden of the Museum of Modern Art, and the pre-Columbian gallery at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., that are among the architectural masterworks of the 20th century.
Johnson once said his great ambition was ``to build the greatest room in the world -- a great theater or cathedral or monument. Nobody's given me the job.''
In 1980, however, he completed his great room, the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, a soaring glass structure wider and higher than Notre Dame in Paris. If architects are remembered for their one-room buildings, Johnson said, ``This may be it for me.''
As an architect, he argued for the importance of the aesthetic side of architecture and claimed no interest in buildings except as works of art. Yet he was so eager to build that he took commissions from real estate developers who refused to meet his aesthetic standards. He liked to refer to himself, with only some irony, as a whore.
In the 1930s, this man who believed that art ranked above all else took a bizarre and, he later conceded, deeply mistaken detour into politics, to work on behalf of Gov. Huey P. Long of Louisiana and later the radio priest Father Charles Coughlin, and expressed more than passing admiration for Hitler.
Philip Cortelyou Johnson was born July 8, 1906, in Cleveland, the son of Homer H. Johnson and Louise Pope Johnson. Johnson went to Harvard to study Greek, but became excited by architecture and spent the years after his graduation in 1927 touring Europe and looking at the early buildings of the developing modern architecture movement.
Leading U.S. architect dies at 98
PHILIP C. JOHNSON'S AMBITION: TO BUILD THE `GREATEST ROOM'
New York Times | Paul Goldberger
Philip Johnson, at once the elder statesman and the enfant terrible of American architecture, died Tuesday on the compound surrounding the Glass House, the transparent building he built in New Canaan, Conn., said David Whitney, his companion of 45 years. He was 98.
Often considered the dean of American architects, Johnson was known less for his individual buildings than for his presence on the architectural scene, which he served as a combination godfather, gadfly, scholar, patron, critic, curator and cheerleader.
His long career was a study in contradictions. He first became famous as an impassioned advocate of modern architecture. But what fascinated him most was the idea of the new, and once he had helped establish modern architecture in the United States, he moved on, experimenting with decorative classicism, embracing the reuse of historical elements that became known as post-modernism, and finally returning again to modernism.
Johnson's own architecture received mixed reviews and frequently startled both the public and his fellow architects. Because of his frequent changes of style, he was often accused of pandering to fashion and of designing buildings that were facile and shallow. Yet he created several buildings, including the Glass House, the sculpture garden of the Museum of Modern Art, and the pre-Columbian gallery at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., that are among the architectural masterworks of the 20th century.
Johnson once said his great ambition was ``to build the greatest room in the world -- a great theater or cathedral or monument. Nobody's given me the job.''
In 1980, however, he completed his great room, the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, a soaring glass structure wider and higher than Notre Dame in Paris. If architects are remembered for their one-room buildings, Johnson said, ``This may be it for me.''
As an architect, he argued for the importance of the aesthetic side of architecture and claimed no interest in buildings except as works of art. Yet he was so eager to build that he took commissions from real estate developers who refused to meet his aesthetic standards. He liked to refer to himself, with only some irony, as a whore.
In the 1930s, this man who believed that art ranked above all else took a bizarre and, he later conceded, deeply mistaken detour into politics, to work on behalf of Gov. Huey P. Long of Louisiana and later the radio priest Father Charles Coughlin, and expressed more than passing admiration for Hitler.
Philip Cortelyou Johnson was born July 8, 1906, in Cleveland, the son of Homer H. Johnson and Louise Pope Johnson. Johnson went to Harvard to study Greek, but became excited by architecture and spent the years after his graduation in 1927 touring Europe and looking at the early buildings of the developing modern architecture movement.
