Artist 44: Philip Johnson

Philip Johnson, born in Cleveland, Ohio, was an American architect.  He studied at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.  He is most known for his buildings entirely clad in glass.  In 1930 he founded the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art.  In his undergraduate at Harvard, Johnson focused mainly on history and philosophy.  He also took several trips to Europe, these trips where his introduction to his fascination with architecture.  In 1932 Johnson and two of his friends put on a show at the Museum of Modern Art, “The International Style: Architecture Since 1922”.  This show by Johnson, Barr and Hitchcock was seen as the introduction of modern architecture to the American public.  He created what is seen as his masterpiece in 1949, the Glass House.  This house has a floor of bricks and the sides are made from glass and charcoal-painted steel.  On his property just fifty feet away from his glass house, sits his guest house, which was made entirely out of bricks with the exception of three large circular windows.  This building was an exact opposite of his glass house.  One of his other most well known buildings was the Seagram Building.  He worked along side Mies van der Rohe as associate architect in 1956.  This caused his practice to grow allowing him to take on larger public projects.  In 2005 Johnson died in his sleep at his glass house getaway.