Philip Johnson Quotes
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The first complete sentence out of my mouth was probably that line about consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds.
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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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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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The people with money to build today are corporations - they are our popes and Medicis. The sense of pride is why they build.
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I wouldn't build a building if it wasn't of interest to me as a potential work of art. Why should I?
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I hate vacations. If you can build buildings, why sit on the beach?
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I'm about four skyscrapers behind.
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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.
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I'm a chameleon, so changeable. I see myself as a gadfly and a questioner.
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I like Houston. It's the last great 19th-century city. Houston has a spirit about it that is truly American, an optimism. People there aren't afraid to try something new.
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Processionalism is primary - how you get from one place to another, the relationships and effects of spaces as you move about in them. That's worked out awfully well in the State Theater. I'm a 'straight-in' man myself; I'm too nervous, I like to know where I am. I also like to know where I'm going.
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There's no worse feeling than seeing my buildings and realizing the mistakes.
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Dullness is the enemy.
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Faith? Haven't any. I'm not a nihilist or a relativist. I don't believe in anything but change. I'm a Heraclitean - you can't step in the same river twice.
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Architecture is basically the design of interiors, the art of organizing interior space.
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I always think of buildings in their settings, but so do other architects.
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Glibness will get your anywhere.
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Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.
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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.
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There's no such thing as old age. I'm no different now than I was 50 years ago. I'm just having more fun.