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The automobile is the greatest catastrophe in the entire history of City architecture.

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
Cities
Greatest
History
Automobile
Catastrophe
Architecture
Entire
City

More quotes by 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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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 think the collectors have made an enormous contribution, not only to the market but to painters themselves... These people that buy, that set standards, make everyone else itch to emulate.
Philip Johnson
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Architecture is basically the design of interiors, the art of organizing interior space.
Philip Johnson
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I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.
Philip Johnson
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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?
Philip Johnson
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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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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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Architecture is the art of how to waste space.
Philip Johnson
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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
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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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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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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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Maybe, just maybe, we shall at last come to care for the most important, most challenging, surely the most satisfying of all architectural creations: building cities for people to live in.
Philip Johnson
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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
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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
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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.
Philip Johnson
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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.
Philip Johnson
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Pick very few objects and place them exactly.
Philip Johnson
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Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston.
Philip Johnson