Quote

The best thing to do with water is to use a lot of it.

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
Water
Use
Best
Thing

More quotes by 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
Architecture is basically the design of interiors, the art of organizing interior space.
Philip Johnson
Image
Architecture is art, nothing else.
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
American megalomania is largely responsible for the growth of the Skyscraper School.
Philip Johnson
Image
So now the floodgates are open to the delight of pure form, whatever its origin. Anything goes.
Philip Johnson
Image
Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating.
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
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
Early unsuccessess shouldn't bother anybody because it happens to absolutely everybody.
Philip Johnson
Image
All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.
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
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
Image
I guess I want to make money just like other people, perhaps more than most people.
Philip Johnson
Image
Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.
Philip Johnson
Image
There's no worse feeling than seeing my buildings and realizing the mistakes.
Philip Johnson
Image
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
Image
The automobile is the greatest catastrophe in the entire history of City architecture.
Philip Johnson
Image
Naturalism and materialism mean essentially the same thing.
Philip Johnson
Image
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