The Man in the Glass House: Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century

by Mark Lamster

A "smoothly written and fair-minded" (Wall Street Journal) biography of architect Philip Johnson -- a finalist for the National Book Critic's Circle Award. When Philip Johnson died in 2005 at the age of 98, he was still one of the most recognizable and influential figures on the American cultural landscape. The first recipient of the Pritzker Prize and MoMA's founding architectural curator, Johnson made his mark as one of America's leading architects with his famous Glass House in New Caanan, CT, and his controversial AT&T Building in NYC, among many others in nearly every city in the country -- but his most natural role was as a consummate power broker and shaper of public opinion. Johnson introduced European modernism -- the sleek, glass-and-steel architecture that now dominates our cities -- to America, and mentored generations of architects, designers, and artists to follow. He defined the era of "starchitecture" with its flamboyant buildings and celebrity designers who esteemed aesthetics and style above all other concerns. But Johnson was also a man of deep he was a Nazi sympathizer, a designer of synagogues, an enfant terrible into his old age, a populist, and a snob. His clients ranged from the Rockefellers to televangelists to Donald Trump. Award-winning architectural critic and biographer Mark Lamster's The Man in the Glass House lifts the veil on Johnson's controversial and endlessly contradictory life to tell the story of a charming yet deeply flawed man. A rollercoaster tale of the perils of wealth, privilege, and ambition, this book probes the dynamics of American culture that made him so powerful, and tells the story of the built environment in modern America.

Genres: Architecture, Biography, Nonfiction, Art, History, Design, Audiobook

529 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 6, 2018

About the author

Mark Lamster is the award-winning architecture critic of the Dallas Morning News, a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, and a Loeb Fellow of the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He lives in Dallas.

Reviews

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d always wondered what kind of person would live in “the” glass house… and now I know. Its owner and designer, Philip Johnson, had three careers, each worthy of its own book. Constant in his life was his aloof, aristocratic persona.

Born to an upper middle class family, he received a considerable inheritance in his youth. After Harvard at a leisurely pace and extensive travel, his wealth allowed him to take an unpaid position as curator for the (NYC) Museum of Modern Art. He organized breakthrough shows that demonstrated modern design in architecture and manufactured goods. He networked with the wealthy and maintained a ranking position at the MOMA until he outlived its founders.

His political career in the 1930’s includes admiration for populist Huey Long and a close relationship with the anti-New Dealer, Father Coughlin. He ran for office in his home state of Ohio. A big stain from these years is his work on behalf of both the American and German Nazi parties for which he never atoned. While he had Jewish colleagues and clients, there are quotes to show he maintained racist attitudes throughout his life.

Johnson is most noted for his career as an architect. Lamster gives a brief survey of how he began his work with residences and grew to public buildings and memorials and into the world of skyscrapers. There are a series of partnerships and won and lost presentations. He is prickly with both colleagues and clients. I was not aware that Johnson designed the Kennedy Memorial in Dallas, which I consider careless and thoughtless; nor that the (NYC) AT&T building took so long to build that it was not completed until the company vanished. There is some brief work with Donald Trump where nothing much resulted, but the contrast in style of the two men produced the publicity both of them craved.

It seems that despite the discrimination faced by others, Johnson was “allowed” to be a homosexual. He kept his partner and other relationships hidden and there was no effect on his position in society or his profession. Late in life he appeared on the cover of “Out” magazine.

This is not a page turner, but a well presented narrative on a productive live. I would imagine the author’s biggest challenge was what to put in and what to leave out. Lamster can only devote a page or two to projects, relationships and issues that had to be sifted through the wake of his life. While there is only 1 b & W photo for most projects, many have very detailed online sites where you can get more perspective.

The Epilogue is a short well written appraisal of this 98 year life.

[Jill Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author Mark Lamster's biography of architect Philip Johnson, "The Man in the Glass House", is a masterful examination of a man who, in many ways, was the embodiment of his class and time. An anti-Semite - he was an open admirer of Hitler and Nazi Germany in the 1930's - he tried to make amends for his actions by designed for no fee a temple in Port Chester, New York. He was opinionated and never failed to give his views a thorough airing. He was diagnosed bi-polar (I'm not sure if that was before his death or after) and his life was filled with emotional ups-and-downs. He was openly gay from an early age and his relationships with men were an important component of his life. He was a masterful designer of buildings and individual rooms. Philip Johnson lived to be almost 100 years old

Lamster's biography of Philip Johnson was the first since Franz Schulze's, "Philip Johnson: Life and Work", which was published in 1996. That book was an excellent look at Johnson's life but maybe the final bio couldn't be written until after Johnson's death in 2005.

Philip Johnson was born to wealthy parents in Cleveland. He and his sisters enjoyed European cultural trips and a high-style of life. He entered Harvard at a young age but took seven years to complete his degree. Given his inheritance years before this parents' deaths (there was something murky about Homer Johnson's finances at the time...), he lived the life of an aesthete at college and ever after. He really did not need to work, but he found his interests were almost totally on architecture - both its history and its practice. Johnson spent his young adulthood making his way
learning how architecture has influenced the world. It was during the 1930's that Johnson was enraptured by Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. He came out of his infatuation, but the term Nazi-lover followed him throughout his life.

Mark Lamster's biography is a complete view of Johnson's life. He doesn't try to downplay Johnson's more egregious societal beliefs but does balance those out with how they affected his life and work. If you read and enjoyed Franz Schulze's biography of Philip Johnson, I think you'll enjoy Lamster's book.

[Lee Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually won't stick with a 450-page book on a somewhat frivolous topic: a rich, eccentric architect, but this was excellent.

In many ways, Johnson was more of a stylist than an architect, by strict definition and by temperament. It is ironic because he had no real artistic talent, yet made interesting artistically-inclined work. He was not unlike any artist that fabricates their work.

The author aptly describes him as “a nihilist with a detached moral compass,” “congenitally insecure,” and “prone to biting the feeding hand and to courting controversy.” The blurb on Arts and Letters Daily read "Philip Johnson wasn't a casual Nazi. He was very Nazi — the sort who insisted on reading Mein Kampf in the original German..."

It makes one wonder why people adopt the beliefs that they do--then might spend an eternity living it down.

[Russell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good bit of my interest in Philip Johnson comes from his work in Fort Worth: the Amon Carter Museum and the Fort Worth Water Gardens. Both were iconic when they debuted, the Amon Carter notable for establishing the museum district, featuring an inviting grassy plain in front of the somewhat forbidding entrance, and fairly quickly overshadowed by Louis Kahn's masterpiece Kimbell Art Museum. Similarly, the Water Gardens were a marvel and significant tourist draw well into the 1990's, before being shunned by locals as a haven for transients. This duality shows itself in Johnson's life, his bipolar disorder unrecognized for most of his existence, but expressing itself in complete reversals architecturally and personally. Nonetheless, much of his work remains groundbreaking today, from his small (unlivable) Glass House to the PPG tower in Pittsburgh. Lamster's biography shows the result of much research, covering Johnson's early years and first attempts at establishing himself very well. Johnson's Nazi leanings and proselytizing before World War II drag a bit, going far beyond establishing the case for his errors. In his later career, when the practice had exploded in size as they built literally anything a client wanted, no matter how ugly, Johnson's work with Donald Trump capped this self-destruction, symbolized by a press conference in which Trump introduced the then nearly 90-year-old Johnson, who had lived an openly gay lifestyle for almost 60 years, with the words "Does everyone know Philip Johnson? A total legend. And ladies, he's available."

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was in high school I pored over old architecture and Life magazines given to me by an uncle who had finished reading them. The clean, modernistic styles depicted, devoid of ornamentation appealed my sense of aesthetics and later my interests in print graphics and typography. Was I aware of Johnson? Somehow I'd associated him with the Johnson & Johnson Band-Aid folks and wondered about the incompatibility of such a connection. Well, there's no connection [p186]. In any case, when I came across this bio about Johnson, one of the lesser promoters of stark, straight lines and lack of ornamentation, I was attracted to read about him. What a man of paradoxes! What a pushy provocateur! What an esthete snob! Flirtations with Nazis, homosexual encounters, verbal jousts with the ever imperious Frank Lloyd Wright, hobnobing with a "prominent patron in later years," Donald Trump. Early on he established the architecture section of the New York Museum of Modern Art. Later his towers identified city skylines of the Reagan era. Johnson lacked formal training and often needed technological help would fortuitously emerge. He'd do the aesthetic vision and leave the nittygritty to underlings. The Glass House in Connecticut is his iconic mark: "In the early days a visiting neighbor informed him, 'It's all very nice, but I couldn't live here.' His reply: 'I haven't asked you to, madam.'"

[Marshall Severson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this book 5 stars because it is a wonderfully written look into the life of the Architect Philip Johnson. The book is made primarily for adults, some teenaged people could read it. The book should not be read by children, as some of the details and incidents are slightly disturbing, the main culprit being the time where he deliberately ran over a child in Germany, and then kept on driving even though his passenger said to stop. The book could be liked by all, not just the architecture lover, the book could be liked by those who want a look into a very controversial character, or even a casual biography reader. The book should be only liked by those who are mature enough to read it, so it can only be liked by adults and teenagers. The book can be read and enjoyed by all. I enjoyed it, so can you.

[Owen Knaperek · Rating 4 out of 5]

This biography on Philip Johnson was very interesting. This was a very informative book as I didn't know anything about him beforehand. Philip Johnson was a very controversial in his architecture and his opinions. The story of Johnson was extremely fascinating. He was so controversial in the fact he helped work for Nazi parties yet so influential in the way buildings are now designed in America. His rise to fame in New York introduced American to modernism. The way this book was written was very enjoyable. The book took me through a rollercoaster of contradictions and controversies. I wasn't at all interested in architecture before reading this book but I learned a lot and I now have a better understanding of cities and how buildings work. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys learning about influential people or who just want to be entertained.

[Charles L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Johnson is an infuriating and paradoxical figure whom Lamster manages to chronicle in even-handed fashion. You might have asked for more about the buildings, but the guy was usually more interesting than his architecture. This is very thoroughly researched, to the point that you sometimes wonder how the specificity of detail was even available. And the writing is very good, though not quite the genius level that some of the more gushing reviews suggest.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book immensely. I have been a lifelong fan of Frank Lloyd Wright and his architecture and only knew of Phillip Johnson at the points his life and works intersected with Wright’s. I found the book very comprehensive and completely fascinating; it’s clear from the writing and footnotes that a great deal of research was done by the author. Overall, Phillip Johnson’s life and architecture is a complex and compelling tale. I highly recommend this book!

[Brian Broadus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read many architect biographies and this is one of the very best, maybe because, if didn't know any of the principals, I did know people who knew them. I orbited just beyond these people, during Johnson's period of greatest fame, and read here in the third person now things that I heard about in rumor then. It's illuminating. Anyway, it's a good book, filled with interesting people not one of which you'd ever want to sit next to on an extended flight.

[Diane · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finally gave up reading this book just over half-way through. I am interested in the history of modern archaeology and have made a point of visiting/touring a good number of houses and other buildings, so am not sure what I did not like. The writing seemed accessible and good. But, I truly could barely stand Philip Johnson and had also trouble with most of the other people with whom he interacted.

[Rick Holter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really strong start — Johnson’s fascination and flirtation with Nazi Germany and fascism was riveting, as was the unusual start of his architecture career. Things bogged down a bit, though, with postmodernism and Johnson’s relationships with critics and his firm. Still, an epic life story, well told by Lamster.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an unusual biography, for someone other than a statesman, in that the subject is mostly unlikeable. The author does project a nuanced view that shows both Johnson's strengths as well as his many flaws, and the book is interesting and well-written. I learned a lot about the history of American architecture from the mid-20th century Modernist movement onward.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommended only for people with an interest in architecture. Well-written and the parts devoted to The Glass House were interesting. Frank Lloyd Wright's visit there and his rapping the things he did not like with his cane is a fabulous anecdote.

[don · Rating 5 out of 5]

A MOST EXTRAORDINARY TIME

A tremendous read.
Johnson fully dissected with all the information you need in understanding this amazing product of America.
Beautifully written ... a must read for those in all phases of art, architecture, construction .

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly impressive, kaleidoscopic biography. This book manages to be both sympathetic and critical, and turns Philip Johnson's essential slipperiness and seeming lack of a solid core into a key insight about the man himself and his times. Excellent!

[Gayla Bassham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Johnson's early life was fascinating, and his attempt at forming an authoritarian American political party definitely held my interest. Toward the end the book started to feel more like a laundry list of projects and my interest waned a bit.

[Jason Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting architectural history of the American 20th century

Interesting architectural history of the American 20th century through the life of Phillip Johnson. Hugely researched and a long read but worth it.

[Justin Bitner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really well put together biography, and having lived in the Dallas area for many many years, it was fascinating to hear of some of his noted works near me, in addition to the architects he would influence (IM Pei, etc).

[G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agent provocateur and self-promoting pitchman, Philip Johnson used his wealth and apparent charm to great effect both good and ill. The author does an excellent job of laying if all out the in very readable fashion. I’ld always admired Johnson, not any more.

[Justin Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, morally intelligent, and with just enough about the actual architecture to please this reader, at least. The kind of biography that makes you wonder why you don't read more biographies, and then you read another biography, and wonder why they make it so bloody hard to read.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved this book.

[Martin Kilkenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great bio of a really interesting man.

[Joe Bellew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book about architecture. What a schmuck Johnson was. And not much of an architect, much less a good one. A worthwhile read.

[Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't enjoy narration

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, but what a strange guy Johnson was.

[Josephine]

learned a lot. would i recommend? hard to say.

[Mitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very detailed but still a good read.

[John Hill]

I reviewed it on my blog: https://archidose.blogspot.com/2018/1...

[Jrs · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the epilogue, the author compares Johnson to the voids that were a part of his architecture. I think it’s apt that Mr. Lamster suffers from this affliction in the long story of the noted architect.

I had little sense as to whom Johnson was or what his architecture achieved. Since Lamster approaches the subject with the expectation that everyone knows him and his achievements the result is a work of critical pedantry and not a thoughtful analysis.