Words matter. These are the best Philip Johnson Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Glibness will get your anywhere.
How does an artist know when the line that he just painted is good or not good? That’s the catch. De Kooning was the greatest of my contemporaries in art, and he knew when he’d done a good line. When he didn’t, he threw it away. I wish I’d thrown away some of mine.
The first complete sentence out of my mouth was probably that line about consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds.
I haven’t any wisdom – just a child like everybody else. I’m not as great as Frank Lloyd Wright.
I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.
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.
If architects weren’t arrogant, they wouldn’t be architects. I don’t know a modest good architect.
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.
I hate vacations. If you can build buildings, why sit on the beach?
The people with money to build today are corporations – they are our popes and Medicis. The sense of pride is why they build.
I call myself a traditionalist, although I have fought against tradition all my life.
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.
Architecture is art, nothing else.
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.
The future of architecture is culture.
Architecture is the art of how to waste space.
There’s no worse feeling than seeing my buildings and realizing the mistakes.
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.
I wouldn’t build a building if it wasn’t of interest to me as a potential work of art. Why should I?
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.
I’m a chameleon, so changeable. I see myself as a gadfly and a questioner.
I’m about four skyscrapers behind.
Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston.
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.
Don’t build a glass house if you’re worried about saving money on heating.
You cannot not know history.
I always think of buildings in their settings, but so do other architects.
Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.
Dullness is the enemy.
All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.
