Philip Johnson Quotes - Page 2

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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

  Thinking, Looks, Purpose

  7 Copy quote

• Naturalism and materialism mean essentially the same thing.

  Philip Johnson

  Mean, Scary, Materialism

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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

  Wall, Talking, Rooms

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• I used to think that each phase of life was the end. But now that my view on life is more or less fixed, I believe that change is a great thing. In fact, it's the only real absolute in the world.

  Philip Johnson

  Real, Believe, Thinking

  "Philip Johnson: What I've Learned". Interview with John H. Richardson, www.esquire.com. February 1999.

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• How does an artist know when the line that he just painted is good or not good? That's the catch. De Kooning was the greatest of my contemporaries in art, and he knew when he'd done a good line. When he didn't, he threw it away. I wish I'd thrown away some of mine.

  Philip Johnson

  Art, Wish, Doe

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• You're going to change the world? Well, go ahead and try. You'll give it up at a certain point and change yourself instead.

  Philip Johnson

  Giving, Trying, World

  "Philip Johnson: What I've Learned". Interview with John H. Richardson, www.esquire.com. February 1999.

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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

  Believe, Rivers, Steps

  "Philip Johnson: What I've Learned". Interview with John H. Richardson, www.esquire.com. February 1999.

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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

  Pride, People, Corporations

  "Architect Philip Johnson Dies at 98". www.foxnews.com. January 26, 2005.

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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

  Reality, Law, Scary

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• Ninety-eight percent are boxes, which tells me that a lot of people are in denial. We live and work in boxes. People don't even notice that. Most of what's around us is banal. We live with it. We accept it as inevitable. People say, "This is the world the way it is, and don't bother me." Then when somebody does something different, real architecture, the push-back is amazing. People resist it. At first it's new and scary.

  Philip Johnson

  Real, People, Scary

  Source: business.highbeam.com

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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

  Consistency, Mind, Mouths

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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

  Fun, Years, Age

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• I call myself a traditionalist, although I have fought against tradition all my life.

  Philip Johnson

  Tradition

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• Early unsuccessess shouldn't bother anybody because it happens to absolutely everybody.

  Philip Johnson

  Bother, Happens

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• When a building is as good as that one, f#*@ the art.

  Philip Johnson

  Art, Architecture, Building

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• Maybe, just maybe, we shall at last come to care for the most important, most challenging, surely the most satisfying of all architectural creations: building cities for people to live in.

  Philip Johnson

  Cities, People, Challenges

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• Glibness will get your anywhere.

  Philip Johnson

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• I guess I want to make money just like other people, perhaps more than most people.

  Philip Johnson

  People, Want, Making Money

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• From the very fact the universe is on the whole orderly, in a manner comprehensible to our intellect, is evidence that we and it were fashioned by a common intelligence.

  Philip Johnson

  Scary, Facts, Common

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• I hate the celebrity architect thing. I just do my work. The press comes up with this stuff and it sticks. I hate the word starchitect. Stuff like that comes from mean-spirited, untalented journalists. It's demeaning.

  Philip Johnson

  Hate, Architect, Journalist

  Source: business.highbeam.com

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• To sum up the state of architecture in America: ninety percent of the buildings we live in and around aren't architecture. No, that's not right - 98 percent.

  Philip Johnson

  Architecture, Building

  Source: business.highbeam.com

  7 Copy quote

• American megalomania is largely responsible for the growth of the Skyscraper School.

  Philip Johnson

  School, Growth, Responsible

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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

  Art, Building, Should

  "Philip Johnson: What I've Learned". Interview with John H. Richardson, www.esquire.com. February 1999.

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• Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.

  Philip Johnson

  Beautiful, Purpose, Building

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• So now the floodgates are open to the delight of pure form, whatever its origin. Anything goes.

  Philip Johnson

  Anything Goes, Delight, Form

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