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

"Bald Philip Johnson with his black, classic, round eye-glasses may be a familiar image to some. He is known as the architect for famous creations like Glass House and Four Seasons. Lamster placed Johnson within the context of the evolution of architecture and the emergence of the architect as star and chronicles the story of a great American reinvention. Lamster draws upon his own deep knowledge of architectural history and trends, digs into Johnson’s past and traces his origins in Cleveland, Ohio to Harvard, from curator to modern and post-modern architect and winner of the inaugural Pritzker Architecture Prize. Lamster captures the forces animating Johnson in his quest for celebrity and recognition and how he made the American public pay attention to architecture. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . Entwined with this story of Johnson’s self-designed evolution as an architect is his dark side. Lamster exposes Johnson’s contradictions, but he also discerns a straight line from the architect’s affection for fascism in the 1930s with his architecture. While this connection may not have been unknown, Lamster really illuminates it and deals with the incredible contradictions of Johnson. I’m personally drawn to contradictory characters, and biography is a wonderful way to get into that dynamic—as we’ve seen in the other NBCC Biography finalists—inclusion and exclusion, liberation and oppression, entitled and dispossessed. Architecture is a fascinating lens through which to see the world. Last year, I loved the biography by Wendy Lesser about Louis Kahn and I’m eagerly awaiting Paul Hendrickson’s forthcoming book about Frank Lloyd Wright . I thought that Lamster wrote about post-modernism and Johnson’s architecture so deftly, and, like our other NBCC biography finalists is resonant today. You’re exactly right, that’s the perfect insight. Lamster has written a biography , not an antiseptic analysis of the buildings. He captures the theatricality of Philip Johnson and connects it with the morass of right-wing politics within the trajectory that moved from neoclassical architecture to his brand of postmodernism. We’re going to have to vote for one winner in the end. It’s going to be impossible! These are wonderful new biographies."