PHILIP JOHNSON (1906 - 2005) was one of the major American architectural minds of the twentieth century and played an enormous role in both understanding and creating the urban skylines of the country. As a historian, curator, practicing architect, and controversial figure, he had a formative effect on generations of architects.

Philip Johnson’s career spanned nearly 75 years. From his initial work at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, which began in 1930, as the then-new institution’s inaugural curator of architecture and design, to his prominence in architecture as a practitioner, which included being awarded the American Institute of Architects (AIA)’s Gold Medal in 1978 and the first Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1979, Johnson’s influence is hard to ignore. An early proponent of modern architecture who later went in various design directions, from postmodernism to later explorations of non-Euclidean geometry, Johnson was not easy to pigeonhole stylistically. What is undeniable is that Johnson would go on to build substantial projects worldwide and also became one of the central powerbrokers of architecture in America for much of the 20th Century.

(Source: PBS & Glass House)