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
Would
Architect
Boring
Guess
Building
Style
Pretty
Great
Recognizable
Every
Architects

More quotes by Philip Johnson

Image
Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.
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 haven't any wisdom - just a child like everybody else. I'm not as great as Frank Lloyd Wright.
Philip Johnson
Image
Pick very few objects and place them exactly.
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
I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.
Philip Johnson
Image
American megalomania is largely responsible for the growth of the Skyscraper School.
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
Architecture is art, nothing else.
Philip Johnson
Image
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
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
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
Image
Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston.
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
There's no worse feeling than seeing my buildings and realizing the mistakes.
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
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
The first complete sentence out of my mouth was probably that line about consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds.
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