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
Style
Pretty
Great
Recognizable
Every
Architects
Would
Architect
Boring
Guess
Building

More quotes by Philip Johnson

Image
Architecture is art, nothing else.
Philip Johnson
Image
The people with money to build today are corporations - they are our popes and Medicis. The sense of pride is why they build.
Philip Johnson
Image
Early unsuccessess shouldn't bother anybody because it happens to absolutely everybody.
Philip Johnson
Image
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
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
The best thing to do with water is to use a lot of it.
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
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
Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston.
Philip Johnson
Image
I guess I want to make money just like other people, perhaps more than most people.
Philip Johnson
Image
Naturalism and materialism mean essentially the same thing.
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
Some of the opera houses in Italy had to be burnt down because people could neither see nor hear. They gave up seeing years ago, but they did enjoy the music.
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
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
Architecture is basically the design of interiors, the art of organizing interior space.
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
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
So now the floodgates are open to the delight of pure form, whatever its origin. Anything goes.
Philip Johnson
Image
Glibness will get your anywhere.
Philip Johnson