Philip Johnson Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“Architecture is the art of how to waste space.”
-- Philip JohnsonSource : New York Times 27 Dec. 1964, p. 9E
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“I hate vacations. If you can build buildings, why sit on the beach?”
-- Philip Johnson -
“All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“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?”
-- Philip Johnson -
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“Doing a house is so much harder than doing a skyscraper.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating.”
-- Philip JohnsonSource : "Philip Johnson: What I've Learned". Interview with John H. Richardson, www.esquire.com. February 1999.
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“All architects want to live beyond their deaths.”
-- Philip Johnson -
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“Architects are pretty much high-class whores. We can turn down projects the way they can turn down some clients, but we've both got to say yes to someone if we want to stay in business.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“In our greatest universities, naturalism - the doctrine that nature is all there is - is the virtually unquestioned assumption that underlies not only natural science but intellectual work of all kinds.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“[Evolution] doesn't mean God-guided, gradual creation. It means unguided, purposeless change. The Darwinian theory doesn't say that God created slowly. It says that naturalistic evolution is the creator, and so God had nothing to do with it.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“From the very fact the universe is on the whole orderly, in a manner comprehensible to our intellect, is evidence that we and it were fashioned by a common intelligence.”
-- Philip Johnson -
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“Naturalism and materialism mean essentially the same thing.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“Scientific naturalism is a story that reduces reality to physical particles and impersonal laws, [and] portrays life as a meaningless competition among organisms that exist only to survive and reproduce.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“In our universal experience unintelligent material processes do not create life”
-- Philip Johnson -
“I wouldn't build a building if it wasn't of interest to me as a potential work of art. Why should I?”
-- Philip Johnson -
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“If architects weren't arrogant, they wouldn't be architects. I don't know a modest good architect.”
-- Philip JohnsonSource : "Philip Johnson: What I've Learned". Interview with John H. Richardson, www.esquire.com. February 1999.
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“I guess I want to make money just like other people, perhaps more than most people.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“The people with money to build today are corporations - they are our popes and Medicis. The sense of pride is why they build.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“I'm a chameleon, so changeable. I see myself as a gadfly and a questioner.”
-- Philip Johnson -
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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.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“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.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“I like the thought that what we are to do on this earth is embellish it for its greater beauty, so that oncoming generations can look back to the shapes we leave here and get the same thrill that I get in looking back at theirs - at the Parthenon, at Chartres Cathedral.”
-- Philip JohnsonSource : "Architect Philip Johnson Dies at 98". www.foxnews.com. January 26, 2005.
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“There's no worse feeling than seeing my buildings and realizing the mistakes.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“So now the floodgates are open to the delight of pure form, whatever its origin. Anything goes.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“I think the collectors have made an enormous contribution, not only to the market but to painters themselves... These people that buy, that set standards, make everyone else itch to emulate.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“The automobile is the greatest catastrophe in the entire history of City architecture.”
-- Philip Johnson -
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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.”
-- Philip Johnson -
“I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.”
-- Philip JohnsonSource : "Philip Johnson: What I've Learned". Interview with John H. Richardson, www.esquire.com. February 1999.
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