Theory Quotes by Philip Johnson

Architecture is the art of how to waste space.

— Philip Johnson

I'm a chameleon, so changeable. I see myself as a gadfly and a questioner.

— 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…

— Philip Johnson

I hate vacations. If you can build buildings, why sit on the beach?

— Philip Johnson

I like to be buttoned onto tradition. The thing is to improve it, twist it and mold it; to make something new of it;…

— Philip Johnson

So now the floodgates are open to the delight of pure form, whatever its origin. Anything goes.

— Philip Johnson

You cannot not know history.

— Philip Johnson

Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.

— Philip Johnson

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

— Philip Johnson

Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating.

— Philip Johnson

In our greatest universities, naturalism - the doctrine that nature is all there is - is the virtually unquestioned assumption that underlies not only…

— Philip Johnson

The automobile is the greatest catastrophe in the entire history of City architecture.

— Philip Johnson