Phillip Cortelyou Johnson, FAIA

Year Awarded: 1978
Born: July 08, 1906; Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Died: 2005; New Canaan,Connecticut,USA

Quote
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.


Projects
• 1984: Transco Tower, Houston
• 1984: Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, Pittsburgh (with John Burgee)
• 1984: AT&T Headquarters, New York City
• 1983: Williams Tower, Houston
• 1980: Crystal Cathedral, Garden Grove, Calif.
• 1973: Boston Public Library
• 1972: South Texas Art Museum, Corpus Christi, Tex.
• 1972: IDS Center, Minneapolis, Minn.
• 1972: Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University
• 1964: New York State Theater at Lincoln Center (with Richard Foster), New York City
• 1962: Kline Science Center, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
• 1958: Seagram Building (with Mies van der Rohe), New York City
• 1950: John de Menil House, Houston
• 1949: Glass House, New Canaan, Conn.


Biography
Philip Cortelyou Johnson first studied at Harvard University in the late 1920s, earning a degree in architectural history in 1930. At that time, he went to work at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, becoming the first director of the museum’s department of architecture. He directed the modern architecture exhibition at MoMA, introducing the principles of European modern architecture to Americans, and he followed this with his book The International Style: Architecture since 1922, co-authored with Henry-Russell Hitchcock.

In 1940 Johnson returned to Harvard to work on a second degree and, studying under Marcel Breuer, he earned a BArch in 1943. For the next three years, he practiced architecture in Cambridge; in 1946 he returned to MoMA to work again as the director of architecture. He became a trustee of MoMA in 1958.

In 1953 Johnson established his firm Philip Johnson Alan Ritchie with an old friend from England. From 1964 to 1967, he worked with Richard Foster, and from 1967 until he retired in 1991, he worked with John Burgee.

In 1979 Johnson received the first Pritzker Architecture Prize. In 1975 The Glass House in New Caanan, Conn., a building he designed for his own residence, received the AIA Twenty-five Year Award.

Johnson is known for introducing and popularizing European modernism to America, and he coined the term International Style to reflect the evolving approach. His own approach also evolved over the years, and he maintained a passion for promoting new and important design movements to support the growth of architecture practice.

Johnson believed that architecture should be concerned more with its aesthetic purpose than with the client’s needs. Emphasizing beauty and style above all else, he rejected the idea that architecture must address the purposes and needs of a building’s users.