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

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
Water
Use
Best
Thing

More quotes by 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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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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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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So now the floodgates are open to the delight of pure form, whatever its origin. Anything goes.
Philip Johnson
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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
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Architecture is the art of how to waste space.
Philip Johnson
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Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating.
Philip Johnson
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When a building is as good as that one, f#*@ the art.
Philip Johnson
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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.
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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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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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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I haven't any wisdom - just a child like everybody else. I'm not as great as Frank Lloyd Wright.
Philip Johnson
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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.
Philip Johnson
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There's no worse feeling than seeing my buildings and realizing the mistakes.
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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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
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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 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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Early unsuccessess shouldn't bother anybody because it happens to absolutely everybody.
Philip Johnson