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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
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
American megalomania is largely responsible for the growth of the Skyscraper School.
Philip Johnson
Architecture is basically the design of interiors, the art of organizing interior space.
Philip Johnson
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
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
There's no worse feeling than seeing my buildings and realizing the mistakes.
Philip Johnson
Pick very few objects and place them exactly.
Philip Johnson
The best thing to do with water is to use a lot of it.
Philip Johnson
[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
Doing a house is so much harder than doing a skyscraper.
Philip Johnson
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
We do pretty much whatever we want to.
Philip Johnson
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
So now the floodgates are open to the delight of pure form, whatever its origin. Anything goes.
Philip Johnson
The automobile is the greatest catastrophe in the entire history of City architecture.
Philip Johnson
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
Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston.
Philip Johnson
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
When a building is as good as that one, f#*@ the art.
Philip Johnson
Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating.
Philip Johnson
