Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Philip Johnson
Age: 98 †
Born: 1906
Born: July 8
Died: 2005
Died: January 25
Architect
Art Historian
Cleveland
Ohio
Philip Cortelyou Johnson
Phillip Johnson
Art
Work
Potential
Build
Wouldn
Building
Wasn
Interest

More quotes by Philip Johnson

Image
In our greatest universities, naturalism - the doctrine that nature is all there is - is the virtually unquestioned assumption that underlies not only natural science but intellectual work of all kinds.
Philip Johnson
Image
Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating.
Philip Johnson
Image
Pick very few objects and place them exactly.
Philip Johnson
Image
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
Image
The best thing to do with water is to use a lot of it.
Philip Johnson
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The first complete sentence out of my mouth was probably that line about consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds.
Philip Johnson
Image
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
Image
Naturalism and materialism mean essentially the same thing.
Philip Johnson
Image
I think the collectors have made an enormous contribution, not only to the market but to painters themselves... These people that buy, that set standards, make everyone else itch to emulate.
Philip Johnson
Image
Concrete you can mold, you can press it into - after all, you haven't any straight lines in your body. Why should we have straight lines in our architecture? You'd be surprised when you go into a room that has no straight line - how marvelous it is that you can feel the walls talking back to you, as it were.
Philip Johnson
Image
I get between nine and ten hours of sleep. Go to bed at 8:30 and get up at 6:00 or 6:30 if I oversleep.
Philip Johnson
Image
Architecture is the art of how to waste space.
Philip Johnson
Image
Glibness will get your anywhere.
Philip Johnson
Image
There's no worse feeling than seeing my buildings and realizing the mistakes.
Philip Johnson
Image
Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.
Philip Johnson
Image
[Evolution] doesn't mean God-guided, gradual creation. It means unguided, purposeless change. The Darwinian theory doesn't say that God created slowly. It says that naturalistic evolution is the creator, and so God had nothing to do with it.
Philip Johnson
Image
Processionalism is primary - how you get from one place to another, the relationships and effects of spaces as you move about in them. That's worked out awfully well in the State Theater. I'm a 'straight-in' man myself I'm too nervous, I like to know where I am. I also like to know where I'm going.
Philip Johnson
Image
I guess I want to make money just like other people, perhaps more than most people.
Philip Johnson