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American megalomania is largely responsible for the growth of the Skyscraper School.

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
Megalomania
Skyscraper
Largely
Responsible
Growth
American
School

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Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating.
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The first complete sentence out of my mouth was probably that line about consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds.
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[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.
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I guess I want to make money just like other people, perhaps more than most people.
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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.
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Early unsuccessess shouldn't bother anybody because it happens to absolutely everybody.
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The automobile is the greatest catastrophe in the entire history of City architecture.
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Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.
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All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.
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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.
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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.
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I wouldn't build a building if it wasn't of interest to me as a potential work of art. Why should I?
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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.
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We do pretty much whatever we want to.
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So now the floodgates are open to the delight of pure form, whatever its origin. Anything goes.
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The people with money to build today are corporations - they are our popes and Medicis. The sense of pride is why they build.
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Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston.
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I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.
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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.
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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.
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