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I like to be buttoned onto tradition. The thing is to improve it, twist it and mold it to make something new of it not to deny it. The riches of history can be plucked at any point.
Philip Johnson
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Philip Johnson
Age: 98 †
Born: 1906
Born: July 8
Died: 2005
Died: January 25
Architect
Art Historian
Cleveland
Ohio
Philip Cortelyou Johnson
Phillip Johnson
Make
Riches
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Improve
Deny
Buttoned
Tradition
Plucked
Point
Twist
History
Twists
Thing
Mold
Something
Onto
More quotes by Philip Johnson
Architecture is basically the design of interiors, the art of organizing interior space.
Philip Johnson
Glibness will get your anywhere.
Philip Johnson
Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating.
Philip Johnson
Doing a house is so much harder than doing a skyscraper.
Philip Johnson
American megalomania is largely responsible for the growth of the Skyscraper School.
Philip Johnson
I guess I want to make money just like other people, perhaps more than most people.
Philip Johnson
Architects are pretty much high-class whores. We can turn down projects the way they can turn down some clients, but we've both got to say yes to someone if we want to stay in business.
Philip Johnson
I wouldn't build a building if it wasn't of interest to me as a potential work of art. Why should I?
Philip Johnson
I used to think that each phase of life was the end. But now that my view on life is more or less fixed, I believe that change is a great thing. In fact, it's the only real absolute in the world.
Philip Johnson
Naturalism and materialism mean essentially the same thing.
Philip Johnson
In my own work, I'd say I'm a classicist, but I look everywhere for my solutions. I don't study the toilet-living habits of my clients, although that's a popular approach. First, I think of every building in history that has been similar in purpose. Then I think of the functional program - that's a major part of the study.
Philip Johnson
I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.
Philip Johnson
I guess I can't be a great architect. Great architects have a recognizable style. But if every building I did were the same, it would be pretty boring.
Philip Johnson
I hate the celebrity architect thing. I just do my work. The press comes up with this stuff and it sticks. I hate the word starchitect. Stuff like that comes from mean-spirited, untalented journalists. It's demeaning.
Philip Johnson
The first complete sentence out of my mouth was probably that line about consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds.
Philip Johnson
Scientific naturalism is a story that reduces reality to physical particles and impersonal laws, [and] portrays life as a meaningless competition among organisms that exist only to survive and reproduce.
Philip Johnson
Architecture is the art of how to waste space.
Philip Johnson
There's no such thing as old age. I'm no different now than I was 50 years ago. I'm just having more fun.
Philip Johnson
Architecture is art, nothing else.
Philip Johnson
Pick very few objects and place them exactly.
Philip Johnson
