Johnson, Philip C(ortelyou)

Johnson, Philip C(ortelyou) (1906-2005), American architect, born in Cleveland, Ohio, and educated at Harvard University in the classics and later in architecture. At Harvard, he worked under Walter Gropius, German émigré leader of the International Style. Johnson's book International Style: Architecture Since 1922 (1932), written in collaboration with the American architectural historian Henry Russell Hitchcock, helped introduce the principles of this new approach to architecture from Europe to the United States. Originally a commentator on and proponent of modern architecture, Johnson was chairman of the architecture department of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from 1932 to 1934 and from 1946 to 1954.

Johnson began designing buildings in 1942. Usually luxurious in scale and materials, with an expansive use of interior space, a classical sense of symmetry, and an elegant grace, his many important works include his own home, the famous Glass House (1949) in New Canaan, Connecticut; the Seagram Building (1958), a glass skyscraper in New York designed in collaboration with the American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; the Kline Science Center at Yale University (1962, New Haven); the Crystal Cathedral (1980, Garden Grove, California), in the shape of an elongated star; and the AT&T headquarters (1984) in New York, which aroused controversy for its use of a classic broken pediment on the top of a skyscraper structure. Debate also arose over Johnson's designs for the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company headquarters (1984), with its use of a Gothic-inspired glass tower, and the Art Deco-inspired Transco Tower in Houston (also 1984).

In 1967 Johnson formed Johnson/Burgee Associates with the Chicago architect John Burgee, with whom he collaborated on many projects. Johnson retired from the company in 1989, but continued to design, and in 1994 formed a new firm with architect Alan Ritchie. Designs by this firm include an office and retail building (1997) in Berlin, Germany, on the site of Checkpoint Charlie, a former border crossing between East Berlin and West Berlin; and an addition (2001) to the Amon Carter Museum (which Johnson had originally designed in 1967) in Fort Worth, Texas.

Johnson received the first Pritzker Prize, one of architecture’s highest awards, in 1979.