Philip Johnson Interview (page: 5 / 8) Dean of American Architects	Print Interview

The Glass House has been called one of the most influential designs of this century. Why?

Philip Johnson: I don't know. I didn't know it was.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. It's the most photographed house. Bothers the hell out of me. I'm supposed to live there and then people come and look at you all the time. It's annoying. I don't think it is. That was the time when I was working with Mies. Mies's ideas are perfectly clear there, of using nothing but glass for the walls. Seemed the natural thing to do. Most people didn't think it was so natural. As they said in the local papers, "If Mr. Johnson wants to make a fool of himself, why doesn't he do it in somebody else's town?" Oh dear. Of course, I enjoyed all of that. I enjoyed the battle.

How important is the battle and the struggle? Can you create without it?

Philip Johnson: Maybe I can't.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Maybe the battle is the thing. Like a horse in wartime, it smells the gunpowder and gallops off to war. Maybe it's the charge and the challenge that makes you work. That's why you can't talk about these things. It's just that it satisfies something needed for living that nothing else will. And the best days in the world today are spent alone in my study with a piece of paper. Great satisfaction. In the evening I can relax and watch Dallas or something.

Do you have to work alone?

Philip Johnson: Oh my goodness yes. The reason I like architecture against painting is that I don't have to be alone, because every ten minutes there's a disaster and they say, "Well I don't think you can take that piece of steel and do that with it. It'll fall down." Well that has nothing to do with art, but it takes a lot of time. So when I mean being alone, I mean when you're doing your so called creative work, you have to be alone.

How important is it to be able to collaborate with others?

Philip Johnson: Very. I'm a people person. I don't know how painters or writers sit there and work month after month. I don't know how you go to the woods in Maine like E.B. White and just sit there. I'd go stir crazy. I can't work if I'm alone. If I take a vacation, I can't work. Therefore I don't take vacations. It's so silly to sit around a beach for God's sake.

What is the feeling of having designs become reality? Seeing your buildings?

Philip Johnson: Now that's another pleasure, to see it come up and watch other people's faces and have them appreciate it. But everybody wants that. That's called the desire for fame. Every movie star has that feeling of wanting to be accepted and be praised. That's a natural ambition in the world. A sense of conquest too. Very, very satisfying, but the trouble is, you mentioned a few very nice buildings, but what about the ninety percent of the other buildings? There's two sides to every one of these coins and I certainly won't talk about those. I only talk about the ones that did come out well.

What disappointments have you had in your career?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Philip Johnson: Most buildings, if I'd had another chance. If somebody had only given me that extra money that I needed at that particular point. If I only hadn't made the decision to give in when I thought it was inevitable and it wasn't. Was it really inevitable that I give in on this point or that point? That's the sin against the holy ghost. You're betraying yourself. And how many times do you do it for expediency? It used to be the old excuse, I remember. I haven't used it recently, but I can see it: "I took that job and I knew it was a lousy job," they say, "but I had to keep the kids in the office, at work. I couldn't fire them because of the Depression and so I had to feed them. Therefore, I took that job, yes." You didn't have to take that job. But you do that, you compromise -- one does I mean. You do, and that's what you're ashamed of. I'm only proud of the buildings I built in my own place, really, because there was nobody to stop me, no financing, no troubles, and if they're bad, at least I don't know it. I go on building little houses around, in and on the place.

What building are you most proud of?

Philip Johnson: I don't know.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I know the ones that are the greatest triumphs, like the Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington D.C. that I worked on with the owners. It was a real collaboration and there was no budget, no money involved. It was just, "If we like that better, we'll do it that way." So I had total freedom and it was a simple project to build a little museum, and the owner and I worked together and it was pure delight from beginning to end and it came out very well.

You've designed buildings from the Glass House to the Crystal Cathedral to the AT&T building. Is there a difference between designing a house and designing a skyscraper?

Philip Johnson: It's more difficult. Because every decision you make makes such an enormous percentage difference in the looks. If you get a good plan on a skyscraper, you've got to get somebody's computer -- not mine -- and click it through and it reproduces all the plans all the way up to the hundredth floor. So you have a few basic decisions and then the battles begin. Because if you get into that kind of money everybody has something to say and everybody knows better than the architect. Every kind of consumer becomes a part of the business. You never know what's going to open up next to stop your design. AT&T! The battles! It's lucky it came out as well as it did.

There certainly was controversy with that.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. That's peculiar, isn't it, because there's nothing very strange about the building, do you think? I shouldn't be asking you. It looks pretty ordinary to me. I put a funny top on it. But not funny, people call it the Chippendale top. I didn't know about Chippendale at the time. I see now what people mean, but I didn't know. It was just a way to end the building that people would notice and would decorate the building so you'd know it from other buildings, with a cut-off, like that. You don't miss the building if you never see the top, but that's natural to make a building be seen. The Chrysler building -- wonderful top. They spent all their time on the top. There's no middle, just dull windows. But with a top like that, that's going to be a monument for all of history. So I though I'd like an interesting top. Boy, my friends in the company weren't as pleased as I was, but we got it. They wanted a new way of looking at the world. I said, "Well this is different," so we built it. Seagram's was just the opposite. Mies had the confidence of the owners and he built it and, it was their idea, to build it in bronze. I mean, there cannot be anything more expensive in the world than bronze. You notice it's the only one, but they said, "Fine. If it's the finest material, let's use the finest material." So that of course was a very pleasant job.

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