Quote

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

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
Every
Architects
Would
Architect
Boring
Guess
Building
Style
Pretty
Great
Recognizable

More quotes by Philip Johnson

Image
Maybe, just maybe, we shall at last come to care for the most important, most challenging, surely the most satisfying of all architectural creations: building cities for people to live in.
Philip Johnson
Image
Architecture is the art of how to waste space.
Philip Johnson
Image
Architecture is art, nothing else.
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
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
Image
All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.
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
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
American megalomania is largely responsible for the growth of the Skyscraper School.
Philip Johnson
Image
Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.
Philip Johnson
Image
The automobile is the greatest catastrophe in the entire history of City architecture.
Philip Johnson
Image
The best thing to do with water is to use a lot of it.
Philip Johnson
Image
So now the floodgates are open to the delight of pure form, whatever its origin. Anything goes.
Philip Johnson
Image
When a building is as good as that one, f#*@ the art.
Philip Johnson
Image
I haven't any wisdom - just a child like everybody else. I'm not as great as Frank Lloyd Wright.
Philip Johnson
Image
Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating.
Philip Johnson
Image
Glibness will get your anywhere.
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
Doing a house is so much harder than doing a skyscraper.
Philip Johnson
Image
Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston.
Philip Johnson