{"id":66,"date":"2005-02-01T11:24:00","date_gmt":"2005-02-01T18:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/?p=66"},"modified":"2022-09-30T12:39:13","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T19:39:13","slug":"architect-philip-johnson-rip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/2005\/02\/architect-philip-johnson-rip.html","title":{"rendered":"Architect Philip Johnson – RIP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pioneering American architect Philip Johnson<\/a> died on Tuesday, January 25th, 2005, he was 98 years old. His controversial designs encompassed everything from magnificent corporate headquarters to the Crystal Cathedral in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Johnson coined the architectural term international style<\/em> and invented the role of museum architecture curator at New York\u2019s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in 1931. Terrence Riley, the current chief curator for architecture at MOMA, said that Johnson \u201cliterally changed the landscape of American architecture.\u201d The US press has lavished praise upon Johnson, calling him \u201carchitecture\u2019s greatest presence\u201d and \u201cDean of US architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of this and more is certainly true. But the press tributes have ignored one lingering fact – Philip Johnson was an admirer of Adolf Hitler<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Johnson spent the early 30\u2019s in Germany, and in \u201932 attended a Nazi rally in Potsdam where he saw Hitler deliver an address. It was love at first sight and the young Johnson became an ardent fascist. Returning to the US, he aligned himself with the fanatical anti-Semite priest, Father Coughlin. When Johnson again revisited Germany in the late 30\u2019s, it was as a foreign correspondent for Coughlin\u2019s pro-Nazi magazine, Social Justice<\/em>. Johnson attended one of the Nuremberg rallies, and when the war broke out, he was writing anti-British diatribes for Coughlin\u2019s magazine. Trailing the Nazi troops who invaded Poland, Johnson wrote:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe German green uniforms made the place look gay and happy. There were not many Jews to be seen. We saw Warsaw burn and Modlin being burned. It was a stirring spectacle.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Social Justice regularly published articles denouncing the \u201cJew controlled Roosevelt\u201d and the \u201cJews of Wall Street.\u201d The magazine was eventually barred from the mail by the US government for violation of the Espionage Act. When Johnson arrived back in the states, he suffered no adverse consequences for his pro-Nazi sympathies, and he was accepted everywhere as his career in architecture truly began to blossom.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s past was largely forgotten or ignored by the press, and he kept silent about his love for Hitler until his last day, when he excused himself by saying, \u201cI lost my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

In celebrating the achievements of Philip Johnson, we should also acknowledge his flaws. Frank Gehry, one of today\u2019s prominent US architects (and also of the Jewish faith), put it this way, \u201cWe forgave, but we didn\u2019t forget.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pioneering American architect Philip Johnson died on Tuesday, January 25th, 2005, he was 98 years old. His controversial designs encompassed everything from magnificent corporate headquarters to the Crystal Cathedral in Los Angeles. Johnson coined the architectural term international style and invented the role of museum architecture curator at New York\u2019s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in 1931. Terrence Riley, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}