Philip Johnson Quotes

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Philip Johnson

Profession : Architect

Birth : July 8, 1906

Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating.

Philip Johnson

All architects want to live beyond their deaths.

Philip Johnson

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

The future of architecture is culture.

Philip Johnson

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

Philip Johnson

All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.

Philip Johnson

Architecture is art, nothing else.

Philip Johnson

I hate vacations. If you can build buildings, why sit on the beach?

Philip Johnson

The first complete sentence out of my mouth was probably that line about consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds.

Philip Johnson

It is wonderful to be in the country in a glass house, because no matter what happens out there, you're nice and safe, you know, cuddled in your little bed, and there it is, raging storms, snowing - wonderful.

Philip Johnson

I always think of buildings in their settings, but so do other architects.

Philip Johnson

I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.

Philip Johnson

There's no worse feeling than seeing my buildings and realizing the mistakes.

Philip Johnson

Dullness is the enemy.

Philip Johnson

Doing a house is so much harder than doing a skyscraper.

Philip Johnson

If architects weren't arrogant, they wouldn't be architects. I don't know a modest good architect.

Philip Johnson

There's only one reason for my whole life, and that's art. Nothing else counts; nothing else gives me pleasure; nothing else gives me satisfaction.

Philip Johnson

Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.

Philip Johnson

To me, the drive for monumentality is as inbred as the desire for food and sex, regardless of how we denigrate it. Monuments differ in different periods. Each age has its own.

Philip Johnson

You cannot not know history.

Philip Johnson