Philip Johnson: the Constancy of Change

Witty, wealthy, and well connected, the architect Philip Johnson was for years the most powerful figure in the cultural politics of his profession. As the Museum of Modern Art’s founding architecture curator in the early 1930s, he helped establish modernism in the United States; as the architect of New York’s AT&T building—the “Chippendale skyscraper”—he gave postmodernism commercial viability on a large scale during the 1980s.

In this book, sixteen eminent voices in the architectural establishment present their ideas on Johnson, focusing on both his eclectic design approach and his vivid intellect.

Essays by Beatriz Colomina, Peter Eisenman, Kurt W. Forster, Mark Jarzombek, Charles Jencks, Phyllis Lambert, Reinhold Martin, Detlef Mertins, Joan Ockman, Terence Riley, Vincent Scully, Michael Sorkin, Kazys Varnelis, Stanislaus von Moos, Ujjval Vyas, and Mark Wigley