Philip Johnson
Philip Cortelyou Johnson ( born July 8, 1906 in Cleveland, Ohio; † January 25, 2005 in New Canaan, Connecticut ) was an American architect and architecture critic.
He formed together with Henry - Russell Hitchcock in the thirties of the 20th century, the term International Style of modern architecture of the time. Later, he was one of the founders of postmodernism and the deconstructivist architecture.
Life
Philip Johnson was born the son of a wealthy lawyer. When his most memorable experience he later described the visit of the Cathedral of Chartres as a child with his mother. He studied philology at Harvard University. From 1930 to 1936 he headed the architecture department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In 1932, he was with Henry Russell Hitchcock, the publication " The International Style: Architecture since 1922 ": out, which appeared to the eponymous exhibition (1985 German ). This led using selected examples of European architecture of the previous decade, the modern architecture on three basic principles back: architecture as volume, regularity is not allowed as an ordering agent, decoration as. Although Johnson and Hitchcock did not include many aspects of avant-garde architecture of the time in their view, the new style soon became a fixed term in the history of architecture.
Johnson is accused of sympathizing in the 1930s with the ideas of National Socialism and to have expressed anti-Semitic ideas. In 1941 called him William L. Shirer in his book Berlin Diary ( 1934-1941 ): The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent as fascists and representatives of Charles Coughlin Social Justice. In later years he distanced himself from the attitude. In a 54 -minute television interview with Charlie Rose, July 8, 1996 he was asked about it, it he expresses himself in an attitude of repentance.
1940-1943 Philip Johnson graduated at Harvard to study architecture under Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. Beginning in 1942, Johnson worked as a freelance architect in Cambridge. In 1946 he was again director of the architecture department at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1947, he organized an exhibition there about Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. With his own residence, the Glass House in New Canaan, which only involves the wet cell as a brick core and four exterior walls has made of glass, he promoted the idea of single-room house. As an example he used the Farnsworth House by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Johnson built even more spacious, light and airy bungalows in New Canaan, who stand in the tradition of the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe, with open floor plan and lots of glass. In 1953 he designed the sculpture courtyard of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Along with Mies van der Rohe he built from 1954 to 1958 in New York, the Seagram Building, which is considered a milestone of modern architecture.
At the same time Johnson joined the shapes in his designs, radical functionality was replaced by mannered and playful shapes. In the foreground stood the intention to give the building a distinctive identity. Johnson was a pioneer of postmodern architecture. Colored window slits, symmetrical rows of arched and closed, heavy body found on his buildings of the sixties.
1967, the architect John Burgee was his business partner. Together, built Johnson / Burgee from the 1970s several notable skyscrapers that translated through the use of historicist architecture quotes on the facades striking accents in the cityscape. Among his designs, the AT & T Building in New York City is from 1984, one of the most famous buildings in the style of postmodernism. In other buildings, Johnson used elements of ancient Roman architecture.
With the exhibition " Deconstructivist Architecture", which he organized with Mark Wigley at the MoMA in 1988, he helped the deconstructivist architecture breakthrough.
In Germany, Johnson was also active: he created from 1994 to 1997 in Berlin on Friedrichstrasse, not far from the former border crossing Checkpoint Charlie, an office center that bears his name.
After Johnson died in January 2005, his longtime life companion David Whitney followed him a few months later on 12 June 2005 in the death.
Five months after Johnson's death, on 12 September 2005, the construction of the "Urban Glass House " at New York's Spring Street was posthumously begun. It was completed in 2006.
Awards
Philip Johnson was awarded in 1961 for the roof Lose Church in New Harmony, Indiana, the First Prize of the American Institute of Architects. In 1979, he became the first winner of the Pritzker Prize.
Buildings
Philip Johnson was planning include the following buildings: