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Philip Johnson Quotes

American - Architect | July 8, 1906 - January 25, 2005

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?

Tears Building Doors You Build Way

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.

Beauty Looking Back Looking Thought

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.

Live People Building Care Important

I call myself a traditionalist, although I have fought against tradition all my life.

Life Myself My Life Tradition Call

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.

History Tradition New Point Improve

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.

Work History Purpose Building Think

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.

Architecture Walls Talking You Body

I haven't any wisdom - just a child like everybody else. I'm not as great as Frank Lloyd Wright.

Wisdom Great Child Just Like Frank

I wouldn't build a building if it wasn't of interest to me as a potential work of art. Why should I?

Work Art Me Building Potential Why

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.

Change Faith Step River Believe You

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.

Good Art Wish Artist Know Done

The people with money to build today are corporations - they are our popes and Medicis. The sense of pride is why they build.

Today Money People Pride Build Why

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