Philip Johnson Quotes
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All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.
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If architects weren't arrogant, they wouldn't be architects. I don't know a modest good architect.
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I wish someone would ask me to design a cathedral.
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The future of architecture is culture.
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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.
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I call myself a traditionalist, although I have fought against tradition all my life.
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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.
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Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Doing a house is so much harder than doing a skyscraper.
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I guess I want to make money just like other people, perhaps more than most people.
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Architecture is the art of how to waste space.
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I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.
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All architects want to live beyond their deaths.
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Anybody can build a building, putting some doors into it, but how many times have you been in a building that moves you to tears the way Beethoven's 'Eighth' does?
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Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston.
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I like to be buttoned onto tradition. The thing is to improve it, twist it and mold it; to make something new of it; not to deny it. The riches of history can be plucked at any point.
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I haven't any wisdom - just a child like everybody else. I'm not as great as Frank Lloyd Wright.
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You cannot not know history.
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I get between nine and ten hours of sleep. Go to bed at 8:30 and get up at 6:00 or 6:30 if I oversleep.
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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.
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I guess I can't be a great architect. Great architects have a recognizable style. But if every building I did were the same, it would be pretty boring.