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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

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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
Style
Pretty
Great
Recognizable
Every
Architects
Would
Architect
Boring
Guess
Building

More quotes by Philip Johnson

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Faith? Haven't any. I'm not a nihilist or a relativist. I don't believe in anything but change. I'm a Heraclitean - you can't step in the same river twice.
Philip Johnson
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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
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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
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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
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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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The best thing to do with water is to use a lot of it.
Philip Johnson
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We do pretty much whatever we want to.
Philip Johnson
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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
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I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.
Philip Johnson
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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
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Naturalism and materialism mean essentially the same thing.
Philip Johnson
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When a building is as good as that one, f#*@ the art.
Philip Johnson
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Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.
Philip Johnson
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Early unsuccessess shouldn't bother anybody because it happens to absolutely everybody.
Philip Johnson
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The first complete sentence out of my mouth was probably that line about consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds.
Philip Johnson
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There's no worse feeling than seeing my buildings and realizing the mistakes.
Philip Johnson
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Glibness will get your anywhere.
Philip Johnson
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I guess I want to make money just like other people, perhaps more than most people.
Philip Johnson
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I haven't any wisdom - just a child like everybody else. I'm not as great as Frank Lloyd Wright.
Philip Johnson
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The automobile is the greatest catastrophe in the entire history of City architecture.
Philip Johnson