Philip Johnson

PHILIP JOHNSON (1906 – 2005) “EARLY UNSUCCESSES SHOULDN’T BOTHER ANYBODY BECAUSE IT HAPPENS TO ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY”

PHILIP JOHNSON • Born - July 8, 1906, Cleveland, Ohio • Died - January 25, 2005 • He was a recognizable figure in American architecture for decades • Influenced by Mies Van der Rohe. • 1946 - Founded the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA • 1978 - As a trustee, he was awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal

• Attended the Hackley School, in Tarrytown, New York. • Studied at Harvard as an undergraduate, in history and philosophy. • In 1928 met Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. They formed a lifetime relationship of both collaboration and competition.

• Philip Johnson and Henry Russell Hitchcock mounted their landmark exhibition “The International Style”. • He characerterized the use of modern materials such as glass and steel, emphasizing the function and structure over ornamental decoration. • At the age of 34 - Returned to Harvard to study architecture, and after military service, embarked a career as a practicing architect. • In 1967- formed partnership with John Burgee and mastered in making large and complex projects.

• He won the first Pritzker Architecture prize for lifetime achievement. The Pritzker Architecture Prize was established in 1979 for the purpose of encouraging greater awareness of the way people perceive and interact with their surroundings. • Received a gold medal from the American Institute of Architects.

QUOTES• "To be in the presence of a great work of architecture is such a satisfaction that you can go hungry for days.” • “The job of the architect today is to create beautiful buildings. That's all.“ • “Comfort is not a function of beauty... purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful...sooner or later we will fit our buildings so that they can be used...where form comes from I don't know, but it has nothing at all to do with the functional or sociological aspects of our architecture”

WORKS

• • • •

GLASS HOUSE - 1949 SEAGRAM BUILDING - 1958 AT&T – 1984 TRANSCO TOWER

GLASS HOUSE - 1949

• The Glass House or Johnson house, in New Canaan, Connecticut, was an important project for modern architecture. • It was also the place of Philip Johnson's passing in January of 2005. • The house is located behind a stone wall on Ponus Ridge Road in New Canaan, and is mostly hidden from the public's view. • The Glass House is one of eleven buildings that Johnson either built or refined on his rambling 47-acre estate.

• It sites the edge of a crest in Johnson’s estate overlooking a pond. • Its sides are glass and charcoal – painted steel; the floor, of brick. • The interior is open with the space divided by low walnut cabinets. • A brick cylinder contains the bathroom and is the only object to reach from floor to the ceiling.

SEAGRAM BUILDING -1958 • A skyscraper in New York City. • It is 156.9 meters tall with 38 stories. It stands as one of the finest examples of the functionalist aesthetic and a masterpiece of corporate modernism. It was designed as the headquarters for the Canadian distillers Joseph E. Seagram's & Sons.

• The interior was designed to continue the overall vision with the external features repeated in the glass and bronze furnishings and decorative scheme. • Was built of a steel frame, from which non-structural glass walls were hung. • Used non-structural bronze-toned I-beams. These are visible from the outside of the building, and run vertically like mullions in the large glass windows. • the building used 3.2 million pounds of bronze in its construction. • Interiors- included bronze, travertine and marble. • Mies used blinds that only worked in three positions fully open, halfway open/closed, or fully closed.

THE PLAZA • The open space in front of the building to become a gathering area, became very popular. • Offered incentives for developers to install "privately owned public spaces“.

TRIVIA • The building is the location of The Four Seasons Restaurant. • Its interiors have been maintained as they were when it opened in 1959 . • The artist Mark Rothko was famously engaged to paint a series of works for the restaurant in 1958.

AT&T - 1984 • The AT&T Building in Manhattan, now the Sony Building, and was immediately controversial for its neoGeorgian pediment (Chippendale top). crowning a Manhattan skyscraper with a shape echoing a historical wardrobe top defied every precept of the modernist aesthetic.

• Its blatant use of a material, did not reflect the functional or structural realities of the building, as well as the incorporation of design elements merely for their own aesthetic value, ran counter to the points of the International Style. • AT&T represented a critical watershed: it was the first major built structure that revived the use of historic styles - an approach to design prevalent throughout history but strongly abandoned and derided by the profession during the supremacy of the International Style

TRANSCO TOWER

• HOUSTON,TEXAS

• At 64 stories and 274.6 M , the Transco Tower is the world's tallest building that is not in a central business district. The skyscraper features the glass and steel severity of the International Style in an art deco-inspired design

BIBLIOGRAPHY • BOOK”100 WORLD TALLEST BUILDING” • WWW.AMAZON.COM