As mentioned in our news posting there is an archived profile, bio, and interview (with video clips) at the website for the Academy of Achievement - Here.
Philip Johnson was an invalable addition to the field of architecture. His death represents the passing of a bygone era defined by the pioneering modernists of the 20th century.
I think it's ironic that his passing was just two days after the death of Johnny Carson, a pillar in the entertainment industry who also greatly contributed to the development of modern culture.
and for those who dont like 'right wing speak' on archinect....eventually the right'ies all come around......
"And in the 1930's, this man who believed that art ranked above all else took a bizarre and, he later conceded, deeply mistaken detour into right-wing politics, suspending his career to work on behalf of Huey Long and later Father Charles Coughlin, and expressing more than passing admiration for Adolf Hitler"
"Mr. Johnson's foray into Fascism was over by the time the United States entered World War II, and two decades later he sought to make public atonement to Jews by designing a synagogue in Port Chester, N.Y., for no fee"
Yes, TED we should all remember the story of the “American Reception of Modernism†(politics scrubbed out, formalism exaggerated, ideology stylized) from school and at least as far as the Upper East Side rich guys go PJ was the great American receptionist.
Not the kind of stuff for an obit page though and there is plenty good to say about him.
RIP PJ we couldn’t have done it without you. May a thousand glass boxes bloom in your memory.
Received an email today at 12:54 pm (eastern time) from Doug, an architect friend in Canada, asking that I call him as soon as possible. Sad news... Leslie, a mutual architect friend, died this morning in Dallas. Then called Tony, another architect friend and former business partner of Leslie and Doug, and told him the sad news. Then called Ron and told him the sad news as well. Then, around 3 o'clock this afternoon, Ron called me to tell me Philip Johnson died last night.
Leslie was a wonderful person, and she was even very instrumental in getting my former CAD business off the ground. I love her, and I miss her more than I ever imagined.
[The Horace Trumbauer Architecture Fan Club is proud to announce two new members: Leslie Deis and Philip Johnson.
When Philip Johnson retires at 98 and Richard Rogers says he may go on until he’s 80, it makes Norman Foster’s victory in the Stirling Prize at the age of 69 seem like a victory for the youth camp.
In its upper reaches, architecture is fast becoming a grey profession, dominated by silver-haired Svengalis  just look at the Stirling shortlist. Four of the six places were taken by grey-haired pensioners: Peter Cook, Richard MacCormac and Foster, twice. But the trend is also spreading further down the ranks. More than half the architects featuring in a survey of the UK’s professional register boast more than two decades in the game and one in eight are aged over 60  the time that most of the population wants to be wintering in southern Spain or building model railways. The oldest working architect we found this week was the remarkable Anthony Swain, 91, who only gave up climbing scaffolds last year (see Soapbox, page 13).
But is it healthy for architects to work into their dotage? It may damage the effectiveness of the architecture the profession produces and it may stifle the growth of the next generation of architects.
More worryingly, ministers warned Britain last week that we are failing to prepare for retirement with proper pensions. Architects must boast one of the poorest records in this department. The image of the grandfatherly architect working until the end does not always reflect dedication and love of the job but a much more worrying fight to fend off poverty.
The workers at the Architects Benevolent Society have a ringside seat. Each year the fund dispenses £1 million to architects and their families in strife. Three-quarters of that stems from architects’ failure to plan adequately for old age.
“The retirement planning of architects, particularly in small one-man practices, is woefully inadequate,†says ABS development manager Norman Webster. “What makes it all the more difficult is that work flow is not constant and all retirement planning requires a constant contribution.â€Â
“Woeful†is the word when it comes to architects’ understanding of the poverty that awaits.
It is either that or remarkable tightfistedness. The entire profession, earning fees of £2.7 billion a year at the last count, donated just £100,000 to the ABS last year  just 400,000th of a per cent  in other words, nothing.
What the profession cannot see are the worn carpets, missing roof tiles and freezing cold homes that can be the consequence of growing old without a financial plan. These are conditions often witnessed by the ABS’s welfare officers who visit the fund’s 400 beneficiaries.
One case on Webster’s desk involves a retired architect in his late seventies living rurally with a terminally ill wife. He ran his own practice and had built up savings over his life, but these were worn away to nothing by medical expenses for his wife. Now poor, he also has to battle his own osteoporosis and he relies on the ABS to subsidise care costs.
More often, it is architects’ wives who suffer the lack of planning, as illustrated by the four architectural widows, helped by the ABS, who turned 100 in the last two years.
While the ABS looks after a generation typically well-furnished with pensions, things are likely to get worse as younger generations move into old age. Because it seems that architects today are preparing even less for retirement. In 2001, the RIBA established a stakeholder pension for architects in line with government regulations. Shortly before it became legally necessary for about 2,500 practices to set up stakeholder pensions, only six practices had signed up for the scheme. It wasn’t long until it was closed to new members due to a lack of interest.
When BD called, the RIBA’s practice department was woolly about its advice on pensions.
“We are concerned and we try to give guidance,†was about as much as practice director Richard Brindley could say.
Perhaps the institute is put off by the relatively young profile of its members  average age 49 and a quarter  who are getting even younger as the drive for student members and the graduate class kicks in. In reality, the profession cannot buck wider demographic trends.
While some architects graft on to pay for their daily bread, there are plenty of others who march on with plenty in the bank and ownership of a thriving practice that could feed them for years to come. In the UK, Farrell,
MacCormac, Foster and Rogers all fit the mould. It proves frustrating for their understudies, who can reach their fifties without a chance to take the stage, but it may also damage architectural development. Fresh architectural approaches â€â€the kind of work produced at Kingsdale School by dRMM, for example  may not be given the oxygen to breathe. It begs the question: is an ageing profession also a dying profession?
The counter-argument is that architecture takes time. Foster recalled on Saturday night how he sketched a completely curvilinear design for the 1975 Willis Faber building, which he noted at the time would be interesting but remained impossible until technology caught up. Next month, Gateshead’s Sage Music Centre will open with more curves than a string section and proof that technology has caught up with almost any architectural design.
It’s almost as though the old line about policemen has been inverted. “Is it me or are architects getting older?†Yes they are and unfortunately, unlike policemen, they don’t have the handsome pensions to allow a graceful retirement.
i always thought that it was amazing that this guy was still the only one alive to speak for the modernists. the guy was living history.
i guess.. now all of them are gone.
was PJ the last modern "hero"? hero in a sense of survival, not architectural excellency... who else from the Olg Guard is still alive apart of Oscar Niemeyer?
in time i'll forgive him for exluding schindler from the '32 international style exhibition at moma... he personally ruined the career of one of history's greats...
i think that it is interesting that the non-architectural coverage says that johnson designed the seagram building with help from mies... i always thought it was the other way around, but whatever.
like many things in the profession, it is virtually impossible to explain his importance to those outside of the profession
My experience there, a sublimely foggy morning, changed both my opinion of PJ and my understanding of what architecture could do - what kind of emotional impact it could have.
I don't have any particular religious associations now, though I grew up with Catholic, Methodist, and Episcopal pressures. After the first few years of college and actively testing various forms of organized worship, I failed to find anything which resonated with my own sensibilities. I'd say now that I believe in an intelligent and benevolent universe - call it God if you must.
So - the Roofless Church was a perfect fit - a confirmation of the way I felt, maybe. It's beautifully simple, almost mute, with just a whisper of the sensual/worldly/phenomenal and a bow toward the traditional formality of organized religious planning.
Did anyone see Charlie Rose last night? It was devoted to Johnson.
Frank Gehry was the guest for the first half hour and spoke about PJ's influence on architecture. The second half hour was rebroadcasting old interviews with PJ.
In seeing the interview, I was really struck by a few things.
I never before thought about the connections between how PJ's discomfort with his homosexuality as a young man, how his sexuality was never accepted by his father, and how this translated into his designs. Playing arm-chair pyschologist, it's interesting to see his angst transform into physical shapes. One could also imagine that his shame of his sexuality translated to his obcession with power and is also what drove him toward fascism.
Also, in a 1997 interview, Johnson was praising the yet-to-be opened Bilbao Guggenheim and said that it would likely become an architectural mecca. It was amazing to see just how right he was. While I've never been entralled by Johnson's buildings, I do appreciate how much he contributed to architecture.
I don't know if the program will be re-aired, but if given an opportunity, I encourage everyone to see it.
I saw it last night as well and agree it definatly gave me a stimulation about PJ as an arch./philosopher/ etc. and mostly as a person. To me his life is a novel consisting of layed out chapters. He has lived through the best and worsts of this world. Great man to be remembered.
Gehry on the other hand was as usual a dissapointment. As always, he has nothing intellectual to say. He just builds the same old crappy titanium cladded buildings and, like me, doesn't know why.
Philip Johnson is dead :(
just heard on the radio but cant google it yet,
philip J. has died.
oh no! who's going to rip off everyone elses' ideas now?
on a serious note, RIP PJ. :(
I whish he had reached the hundreds, it would have been the fairy tale of architects. RIP PJ.
is this for real.....i can't find any other news source to corroborate...?
check this:
www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=13405_0_42_0_C
didn't he just announce his retirement? seems there isn't life after architecture. rip.
RIP
:(
3ifs -
i know a few people that are great at ripping off ideas....let me know if you want to get in touch with them.
sorry....as soon as i posted that last statement, all of the sites posted the story....
rip philip my boy
He was the coolest dude in glasses...
less is more, less is bore, I am a whore...PJ
RIP philip
As mentioned in our news posting there is an archived profile, bio, and interview (with video clips) at the website for the Academy of Achievement - Here.
At 98...I guess he lived to the max, in his cool glass house.
May he rest in peace...
Philip Johnson was an invalable addition to the field of architecture. His death represents the passing of a bygone era defined by the pioneering modernists of the 20th century.
I think it's ironic that his passing was just two days after the death of Johnny Carson, a pillar in the entertainment industry who also greatly contributed to the development of modern culture.
The King is Dead.
Long Live the King
definitely architecture must have been the cause of his early demise....
"Mr. Johnson is survived by a sister, Jeannette Dempsey of Cleveland, now 102. "
bet she's not an architect! the power of good jeans..not levi-[straus] brand.....
and for all you want to be architects, he entered architecture school at the young age of 35....its never to late i guess.
[i must have been hallucinating...thought i saw a monkey here a few clicks ago..]
i wonder where i will be when im 102....
yeah R I P . i hope i can make it to 98
and for those who dont like 'right wing speak' on archinect....eventually the right'ies all come around......
"And in the 1930's, this man who believed that art ranked above all else took a bizarre and, he later conceded, deeply mistaken detour into right-wing politics, suspending his career to work on behalf of Huey Long and later Father Charles Coughlin, and expressing more than passing admiration for Adolf Hitler"
"Mr. Johnson's foray into Fascism was over by the time the United States entered World War II, and two decades later he sought to make public atonement to Jews by designing a synagogue in Port Chester, N.Y., for no fee"
Over a 100 year span, odds are you would have done some freaky things as well.
Yes, TED we should all remember the story of the “American Reception of Modernism†(politics scrubbed out, formalism exaggerated, ideology stylized) from school and at least as far as the Upper East Side rich guys go PJ was the great American receptionist.
Not the kind of stuff for an obit page though and there is plenty good to say about him.
RIP PJ we couldn’t have done it without you. May a thousand glass boxes bloom in your memory.
its from the extensive obit [3600 word] of the nytimes .
well worth reading
Received an email today at 12:54 pm (eastern time) from Doug, an architect friend in Canada, asking that I call him as soon as possible. Sad news... Leslie, a mutual architect friend, died this morning in Dallas. Then called Tony, another architect friend and former business partner of Leslie and Doug, and told him the sad news. Then called Ron and told him the sad news as well. Then, around 3 o'clock this afternoon, Ron called me to tell me Philip Johnson died last night.
Leslie was a wonderful person, and she was even very instrumental in getting my former CAD business off the ground. I love her, and I miss her more than I ever imagined.
[The Horace Trumbauer Architecture Fan Club is proud to announce two new members: Leslie Deis and Philip Johnson.
http://www.quondam.com/18/1718.htm ]
More space for the next generation perhaps?
Article in Building Design (UK) Oct 04
When Philip Johnson retires at 98 and Richard Rogers says he may go on until he’s 80, it makes Norman Foster’s victory in the Stirling Prize at the age of 69 seem like a victory for the youth camp.
In its upper reaches, architecture is fast becoming a grey profession, dominated by silver-haired Svengalis  just look at the Stirling shortlist. Four of the six places were taken by grey-haired pensioners: Peter Cook, Richard MacCormac and Foster, twice. But the trend is also spreading further down the ranks. More than half the architects featuring in a survey of the UK’s professional register boast more than two decades in the game and one in eight are aged over 60  the time that most of the population wants to be wintering in southern Spain or building model railways. The oldest working architect we found this week was the remarkable Anthony Swain, 91, who only gave up climbing scaffolds last year (see Soapbox, page 13).
But is it healthy for architects to work into their dotage? It may damage the effectiveness of the architecture the profession produces and it may stifle the growth of the next generation of architects.
More worryingly, ministers warned Britain last week that we are failing to prepare for retirement with proper pensions. Architects must boast one of the poorest records in this department. The image of the grandfatherly architect working until the end does not always reflect dedication and love of the job but a much more worrying fight to fend off poverty.
The workers at the Architects Benevolent Society have a ringside seat. Each year the fund dispenses £1 million to architects and their families in strife. Three-quarters of that stems from architects’ failure to plan adequately for old age.
“The retirement planning of architects, particularly in small one-man practices, is woefully inadequate,†says ABS development manager Norman Webster. “What makes it all the more difficult is that work flow is not constant and all retirement planning requires a constant contribution.â€Â
“Woeful†is the word when it comes to architects’ understanding of the poverty that awaits.
It is either that or remarkable tightfistedness. The entire profession, earning fees of £2.7 billion a year at the last count, donated just £100,000 to the ABS last year  just 400,000th of a per cent  in other words, nothing.
What the profession cannot see are the worn carpets, missing roof tiles and freezing cold homes that can be the consequence of growing old without a financial plan. These are conditions often witnessed by the ABS’s welfare officers who visit the fund’s 400 beneficiaries.
One case on Webster’s desk involves a retired architect in his late seventies living rurally with a terminally ill wife. He ran his own practice and had built up savings over his life, but these were worn away to nothing by medical expenses for his wife. Now poor, he also has to battle his own osteoporosis and he relies on the ABS to subsidise care costs.
More often, it is architects’ wives who suffer the lack of planning, as illustrated by the four architectural widows, helped by the ABS, who turned 100 in the last two years.
While the ABS looks after a generation typically well-furnished with pensions, things are likely to get worse as younger generations move into old age. Because it seems that architects today are preparing even less for retirement. In 2001, the RIBA established a stakeholder pension for architects in line with government regulations. Shortly before it became legally necessary for about 2,500 practices to set up stakeholder pensions, only six practices had signed up for the scheme. It wasn’t long until it was closed to new members due to a lack of interest.
When BD called, the RIBA’s practice department was woolly about its advice on pensions.
“We are concerned and we try to give guidance,†was about as much as practice director Richard Brindley could say.
Perhaps the institute is put off by the relatively young profile of its members  average age 49 and a quarter  who are getting even younger as the drive for student members and the graduate class kicks in. In reality, the profession cannot buck wider demographic trends.
While some architects graft on to pay for their daily bread, there are plenty of others who march on with plenty in the bank and ownership of a thriving practice that could feed them for years to come. In the UK, Farrell,
MacCormac, Foster and Rogers all fit the mould. It proves frustrating for their understudies, who can reach their fifties without a chance to take the stage, but it may also damage architectural development. Fresh architectural approaches â€â€the kind of work produced at Kingsdale School by dRMM, for example  may not be given the oxygen to breathe. It begs the question: is an ageing profession also a dying profession?
The counter-argument is that architecture takes time. Foster recalled on Saturday night how he sketched a completely curvilinear design for the 1975 Willis Faber building, which he noted at the time would be interesting but remained impossible until technology caught up. Next month, Gateshead’s Sage Music Centre will open with more curves than a string section and proof that technology has caught up with almost any architectural design.
It’s almost as though the old line about policemen has been inverted. “Is it me or are architects getting older?†Yes they are and unfortunately, unlike policemen, they don’t have the handsome pensions to allow a graceful retirement.
i always thought that it was amazing that this guy was still the only one alive to speak for the modernists. the guy was living history.
i guess.. now all of them are gone.
r.i.p.
My boss joked that he's likely to be burried in a glass coffin.
i just saw it on cnn. it's all over the place..
i agree mnesikles..
and now that he's dead, you have to give him respect for all he's done for arch.
thanks phillip
I don't think PJ was working for his pension. Long live modernism and all who practice it well.
I had never known about the homosexuality.
It's great to be an architect when your already flithy rich.
was PJ the last modern "hero"? hero in a sense of survival, not architectural excellency... who else from the Olg Guard is still alive apart of Oscar Niemeyer?
RIP Philip Johnson
kinda sad..
his sister lives and is 102. shocking.
rip-pj...
in time i'll forgive him for exluding schindler from the '32 international style exhibition at moma... he personally ruined the career of one of history's greats...
rest in peace!
man, we need modernism again...
i think that it is interesting that the non-architectural coverage says that johnson designed the seagram building with help from mies... i always thought it was the other way around, but whatever.
like many things in the profession, it is virtually impossible to explain his importance to those outside of the profession
Thanks for the skylines...
and this..
Roofless Chapel, New Harmony, Indiana
"Say a little prayer for me."
"In all unimportant matters, style, not sincerity is the essential.
In all important matters, style, not sincerity is the essential."
Phillip Johnson or Oscar Wilde?
i just wish pj liked bucky.
Amen to the Roofless Church.
My experience there, a sublimely foggy morning, changed both my opinion of PJ and my understanding of what architecture could do - what kind of emotional impact it could have.
Steven,
But what did it do to your perception of religion?
I don't have any particular religious associations now, though I grew up with Catholic, Methodist, and Episcopal pressures. After the first few years of college and actively testing various forms of organized worship, I failed to find anything which resonated with my own sensibilities. I'd say now that I believe in an intelligent and benevolent universe - call it God if you must.
So - the Roofless Church was a perfect fit - a confirmation of the way I felt, maybe. It's beautifully simple, almost mute, with just a whisper of the sensual/worldly/phenomenal and a bow toward the traditional formality of organized religious planning.
yeah, stabmasterarsen, they got it wrong. pj was the associate architect and mies the design architect; not a minor detail.
they also called his famous house a cube...
sponge bob?
Did anyone see Charlie Rose last night? It was devoted to Johnson.
Frank Gehry was the guest for the first half hour and spoke about PJ's influence on architecture. The second half hour was rebroadcasting old interviews with PJ.
In seeing the interview, I was really struck by a few things.
I never before thought about the connections between how PJ's discomfort with his homosexuality as a young man, how his sexuality was never accepted by his father, and how this translated into his designs. Playing arm-chair pyschologist, it's interesting to see his angst transform into physical shapes. One could also imagine that his shame of his sexuality translated to his obcession with power and is also what drove him toward fascism.
Also, in a 1997 interview, Johnson was praising the yet-to-be opened Bilbao Guggenheim and said that it would likely become an architectural mecca. It was amazing to see just how right he was. While I've never been entralled by Johnson's buildings, I do appreciate how much he contributed to architecture.
I don't know if the program will be re-aired, but if given an opportunity, I encourage everyone to see it.
I saw it last night as well and agree it definatly gave me a stimulation about PJ as an arch./philosopher/ etc. and mostly as a person. To me his life is a novel consisting of layed out chapters. He has lived through the best and worsts of this world. Great man to be remembered.
Gehry on the other hand was as usual a dissapointment. As always, he has nothing intellectual to say. He just builds the same old crappy titanium cladded buildings and, like me, doesn't know why.
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