Quote

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

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
Someone
Projects
Much
Stay
Way
Turn
Pretty
Class
Whores
High
Architects
Turns
Clients
Business
Architect

More quotes by 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
Doing a house is so much harder than doing a skyscraper.
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
Architecture is basically the design of interiors, the art of organizing interior space.
Philip Johnson
Image
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
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
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
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
Image
The best thing to do with water is to use a lot of it.
Philip Johnson
Image
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
Image
I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.
Philip Johnson
Image
Architecture is art, nothing else.
Philip Johnson
Image
When a building is as good as that one, f#*@ the art.
Philip Johnson
Image
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
Image
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
Image
So now the floodgates are open to the delight of pure form, whatever its origin. Anything goes.
Philip Johnson
Image
There's no worse feeling than seeing my buildings and realizing the mistakes.
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
Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating.
Philip Johnson
Image
Architecture is the art of how to waste space.
Philip Johnson