PHILIP JOHNSON

(1906 – 2005)

“EARLY UNSUCCESSES SHOULDN’T BOTHER

ANYBODY BECAUSE IT HAPPENS TO ABSOLUTELY
EVERYBODY”
 PHILIP JOHNSON
• Born - July 8, 1906, Cleveland, Ohio
• Died - January 25, 2005
• He was a recognizable figure in American architecture
for decades
• Influenced by Mies Van der Rohe.
• 1946 - Founded the Department of Architecture and
Design at MoMA
• 1978 - As a trustee, he was awarded an American
Institute of Architects Gold Medal
• Attended the Hackley School, in Tarrytown, New York.
• Studied at Harvard as an undergraduate, in history and
philosophy.
• In 1928 met Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. They formed a
lifetime relationship of both collaboration and
competition.
• Philip Johnson and Henry Russell Hitchcock mounted
their landmark exhibition “The International Style”.
• He characerterized the use of modern materials such as
glass and steel, emphasizing the function and structure
over ornamental decoration.
• At the age of 34 - Returned to Harvard to study
architecture, and after military service, embarked a
career as a practicing architect.
• In 1967- formed partnership with John Burgee and
mastered in making large and complex projects.
• He won the first Pritzker Architecture prize for
lifetime achievement. The Pritzker Architecture Prize
was established in 1979 for the purpose of encouraging
greater awareness of the way people perceive and
interact with their surroundings.
• Received a gold medal from the American Institute of
Architects.
 QUOTES-

• "To be in the presence of a great work of architecture is

such a satisfaction that you can go hungry for days.”
• “The job of the architect today is to create beautiful
buildings. That's all.“
• “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”
 WORKS

• GLASS HOUSE - 1949

• SEAGRAM BUILDING - 1958
• AT&T – 1984
• TRANSCO TOWER
 GLASS HOUSE - 1949

• The Glass House or Johnson house, in New Canaan,

Connecticut, was an important project for modern
architecture.
• It was also the place of Philip Johnson's passing in January
of 2005.
• The house is located behind a stone wall on Ponus Ridge
Road in New Canaan, and is mostly hidden from the public's
view.
• The Glass House is one of eleven buildings that Johnson
either built or refined on his rambling 47-acre estate.
• It sites the edge of a crest in Johnson’s estate overlooking
a pond.
• Its sides are glass and charcoal – painted steel; the floor,
of brick.
• The interior is open with the space divided by low walnut
cabinets.
• A brick cylinder contains the bathroom and is the only
object to reach from floor to the ceiling.
 SEAGRAM BUILDING
-1958
• A skyscraper in New York City.
• It is 156.9 meters tall with 38
stories. It stands as one of the
finest examples of the
functionalist aesthetic and a
masterpiece of corporate
modernism. It was designed as
the headquarters for the Canadian
distillers Joseph E. Seagram's &
Sons.
• The interior was designed to continue the overall vision
with the external features repeated in the glass and bronze
furnishings and decorative scheme.
• Was built of a steel frame, from which non-structural
glass walls were hung.
• Used non-structural bronze-toned I-beams. These are
visible from the outside of the building, and run vertically
like mullions in the large glass windows.
• the building used 3.2 million pounds of bronze in its
construction.
• Interiors- included bronze, travertine and marble.
• Mies used blinds that only worked in three positions -
fully open, halfway open/closed, or fully closed.
 THE PLAZA
• The open space in front of
the building to become a
gathering area, became
very popular.
• Offered incentives for
developers to install
"privately owned public
spaces“.
 TRIVIA
• The building is the location of The Four Seasons
Restaurant.
• Its interiors have been maintained as they were
when it opened in 1959 .
• The artist Mark Rothko was famously engaged to
paint a series of works for the restaurant in 1958.
 AT&T - 1984
• The AT&T Building in
Manhattan, now the Sony
Building, and was immediately
controversial for its neo-
Georgian pediment (Chippendale
top). crowning a Manhattan
skyscraper with a shape echoing
a historical wardrobe top defied
every precept of the modernist
aesthetic.
• Its blatant use of a material, did not reflect the
functional or structural realities of the building,
as well as the incorporation of design elements
merely for their own aesthetic value, ran counter
to the points of the International Style.
• AT&T represented a critical watershed: it was
the first major built structure that revived the use
of historic styles - an approach to design
prevalent throughout history but strongly
abandoned and derided by the profession during
the supremacy of the International Style
 TRANSCO TOWER

• HOUSTON,TEXAS
• At 64 stories and 274.6 M , the
Transco Tower is the world's tallest
building that is not in a central
business district. The skyscraper
features the glass and steel severity
of the International Style in an art
deco-inspired design
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
• BOOK”100 WORLD TALLEST BUILDING”
• WWW.AMAZON.COM