Philip Cortelyou Johnson: Early Life and The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition

Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8,
1906 January 25, 2005) was an

American architect, best known for his works
of Modern architecture, including the Glass
House in New Canaan, Connecticut, and his
works of postmodern architecture,
particularly 550 Madison Avenue (Formerly
the ATT&T Building and then the Sony
Building), designed with John Burgee. In
1978 he was awarded an American Institute
of Architects Gold Medal and in 1979 the
first Pritzker Architecture Prize.
EARLY LIFE AND THE MUSEUM OF

MODERN ART EXHIBITION
Johnson was born in Cleveland, Ohio on July
8, 1906, the son of a prosperous Cleveland
lawyer, Homer H. Johnson. He was
descended from the Jansen family of New Amsterdam, and included among
his ancestors the Huguenot Jacques Cortelyou, who laid out the first town
plan of New Amsterdam for Peter Stuyvesant. He attended the Hackley
School, in Tarrytown, New York, and then studied as an undergraduate
at Harvard University where he focused on learning Greek, philology, history
and philosophy, particularly the work of the Pre-Socratic philosophers. Upon
completing his studies in 1927, he made a series of trips to Europe, visiting
the landmarks of classical and Gothic architecture, and joined Henry Russell
Hitchcock, a prominent architectural historian, who was introducing
Americans to the work of Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and other modernists.
In 1928 he met Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who was at the time designing
the German Pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition. The
meeting formed the basis for a lifelong relationship of both collaboration and
competition.
In 1930, Johnson joined the architecture department of the Museum of

Modern Art in New York. There he arranged for American visits by Gropius
and Le Corbusier, and negotiated the first American commission for Mies van
der Rohe. In 1932, working with Hitchcock and Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and Henry-
Russell Hitchcock, he organized the first exhibition on Modern architecture at
the Museum of Modern Art in 1932. The show and their simultaneously
published book "International Style: Modern Architecture Since 1922" played
an important part in introducing modern architecture to the American public.
When the rise of the Nazis in Germany forced the modernists Marcel
Breuer and Mies van der Rohe to leave Germany, Johnson helped arrange for
them to come to work in the United States.
In 1936, in the depths of the Great Depression, he left the Museum of Modern
Art for a brief venture into journalism and politics. For a time he supported
the extreme populist Governor of Louisiana Huey Long and Father Charles
Coughlin, and traveled to Berlin as a correspondent for Coughlin's radically
populist and often anti-Semitic newspaper Social Justice. In the newspaper,
Johnson expressed, as the New York Times later reported, "more than passing
admiration for Hitler" Johnson observed the Nuremberg Rallies in Germany
and, sponsored by the German government, covered the invasion of Poland
in 1939. Many years later He told his biographer, Franze Shultze,You simply
could not fail to be caught up in the excitement of it, by the marching songs,
by the crescendo and climax of the whole thing, as Hitler came on at last to
harangue the crowd, and told of being thrilled at the sight of all those blond
boys in black leather marching past the Fhrer. In his 1994 biography of
Johnson, Schultze wrote: " In politics he proved to be a model of futility. He
was never much of a political threat to anyone. still less an effective doer of
either political food or political evil.
In 1941, at the age of 35, Johnson abandoned politics and journalism and
enrolled in the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he studied with
Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius. In 1941, Johnson designed and actually
built his first building, a house still existing at 9 Ash Street in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. The house, strongly influenced by Mies van der Rohe, has a
wall around the lot which merges with the structure. After the United States
entered World War II| in December 1941, Johnson enlisted in the Army. He
was investigated by the FBI for his contacts with the German government
and his support for Coughlin, who opposed American intervention in the war,
but he was cleared for service and entered the army. He spent his army
service during the war in the United States.
In 1946, after he completed his military service, Johnson returned to the

Museum of Modern Art as a curator and writer. At the same time, he began
working to establish his architectural practice. He built a small house, in th
style of Mies, in Saaponack, Long Island in 1946. This was followed by one of
this most famous buildings, which he built for himself; the Glass
House in New Canaan, Connecticut, completed in 1949, which has become a
landmark of modern architecture.
In 1986 Johnson and Burgee had moved the offices of their firm into one of
their new buildings, the Lipstick building, the popular name of the skyscraper
they built 885 Third Avenue in New York, given its nickname because of its
resemblance to the color and shape of a stick of lipstick. Burgee wanted to
play a larger role in the firm,he negotiated a smaller part for Johnson, and in
1991, as the chief executive of the firm, pushed him out entirely. Without
Johnson, the firm was forced by an arbitration decision into bankruptcy.
Johnson, who had no liability in the affair, opened a smaller office in the
Lipstick Building.
In his solo practice, Johnson did not confine himself to a single style, and was
comfortable mixing elements of modernism and postmodernism. For
the Cleveland Play House, he built a romanesque brick structure; for the
Architecture School at the University of Houston, he said that his model the
French neoclassical architecture by the 18th century architect French Claude-
Nicolas Ledoux. His skyscrapers on the 1980s were skillfully constructed and
clad in granite and marble, and usually had some feature borrowed from
historic architecture. In New York he designed the Museum of Television and
Radio, (now the Paley Center for Media) (1991) and also designed several
residential skyscrapers for Donald Trump, including Trump Place in Riverside
South, Manhattan.
In his later years he made continual additions to his estate in New

Canaan surrounding his Glass House residence. The final addition he made
was La Monstra (1995), a pavilion and visitor center to welcome visitors,
done in a highly abstract postmodernist sculptural style. He gave it the name
because he said it resembled a monster.
He continued to build impressive postmodern skyscrapers around the United

States, including One Detroit Center in Detroit Michigan (199193), a
variation of the Flemish Renaissance style he had used earlier. He also
constructed two leaning office buildings, the Gate of Europe at Plaza de
Castilla in Madrid, Spain. These two twenty-story office buildings, each with a
slope of fifteen degrees, were an advance notice of the popularity of tilting
skyscrapers in the early 21st century. One of his last work, completed after
his death, was the Urban Glass House, a condominium building completed in
2006. It was a quotation from his own earlier work, his famous 1949 Glass
House residence..
HONORS
In 1978 Johnson was awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal.
In 1979 he became the first recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize the
most prestigious international architectural award.
PERSONAL LIFE
Johnson, at the age of ninety-eight, died in his sleep while at his Glass
House retreat on January 25, 2005. He was survived by his partner of 45
years, David Whitney,who died later that year at age 66.
Johnson was gay, and has been called "the best-known openly gay architect
in America. He came out publicly in 1993.
In his will Johnson left his residential compound to the National Trust for
Historic Preservation. It is now open to the public.
ART COLLECTION AND ARCHIVES
As an art collector Johnson's eclectic eye supported avant-garde movements

and young artists often before they became widely known. His collection of
American art was strong in Abstract expressionism, Pop
Art, Minimalism, Neo-Dada, Color Field, Lyrical Abstraction, and Neo-
Expressionism and he often donated important works from his collection to
institutions like MoMA, and other important private museums and University
collections like the Norton Simon Museum, the Sheldon Museum of Art and
the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford
University among many others.
Johnson's publicly held archive, including architectural drawings, project

records, and other papers up until 1964 are held by the Drawings and
Archives Department of Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia
University, the Getty, and the Museum of Modern Art.
The Glass House
The Seagram Building
Crystal Cathedral
Fort Worth Water Gardens
Williams Tower
Technological Institute of the Philippines Cubao -
938 Aurora Boulevard, Cubao, Quezon City,
Philippines
H.O.A. II
Submitted by: Santos, Kristina E.
Date: February 13, 2017
Section: AR22FA3

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Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8,

1906 January 25, 2005) was an

EARLY LIFE AND THE MUSEUM OF

In 1930, Johnson joined the architecture department of the Museum of

In 1946, after he completed his military service, Johnson returned to the

In his later years he made continual additions to his estate in New

He continued to build impressive postmodern skyscrapers around the United

ART COLLECTION AND ARCHIVES

As an art collector Johnson's eclectic eye supported avant-garde movements

Johnson's publicly held archive, including architectural drawings, project

Date: February 13, 2017

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