Volume 41, Number 21 · December 22, 1994
Prince of the City
By Martin Filler
Philip Johnson: Life and Works
by Franz Schulze
Knopf, 465 pp., $30.00
Philip Johnson: The Glass House
edited by David Whitney, edited by Jeffrey Kipnis
Pantheon, 174 pp., $35.00
The Oral History of Modern Architecture: Interviews with the Greatest Architects of the Twentieth Century
by John Peter
Abrams, 320 with compact disc pp., $67.50
Philip Johnson: The Architect in His Own Words
by Hilary Lewis, by John O'Connor
Rizzoli, 200 pp., $50.00
If, as the philosopher Francis Bacon wrote, 'the monuments of wit survive the monuments of power,' then Philip Johnson might be remembered by future generations after all. Johnson, who will begin his ninetieth year next summer, is unlikely to be regarded very highly as an architect, however. During an exceptionally fortunate career of more than half a century—propelled by personal wealth, social connections, quick intelligence, ambition, skill at self-advertisement, dazzling charm, a sturdy constitution, impeccable timing, and an instinct for gravitating toward the powerful—he has produced only half a dozen structures of any real distinction. Some great architectural reputations rest on even fewer works, but they are not contravened, as in Johnson's case, by a much larger proportion of poor designs.
Review, 4656 words
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