Explore Quotes by Philip Johnson

I wish someone would ask me to design a cathedral.

I used to think that each phase of life was the end. But now that my view on life is more or less fixed, I believe that change is a great thing. In fact, it's the only real absolute in the world.

I guess I want to make money just like other people, perhaps more than most people.

I guess I can't be a great architect. Great architects have a recognizable style. But if every building I did were the same, it would be pretty boring.

The people with money to build today are corporations - they are our popes and Medicis. The sense of pride is why they build.

There's no worse feeling than seeing my buildings and realizing the mistakes.

I like the thought that what we are to do on this earth is embellish it for its greater beauty, so that oncoming generations can look back to the shapes we leave here and get the same thrill that I get in looking back at theirs - at the Parthenon, at Chartres Cathedral.

Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.

Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston.

The future of architecture is culture.

Glibness will get your anywhere.

If architects weren't arrogant, they wouldn't be architects. I don't know a modest good architect.

You're going to change the world? Well, go ahead and try. You'll give it up at a certain point and change yourself instead.

I always think of buildings in their settings, but so do other architects.

I get between nine and ten hours of sleep. Go to bed at 8:30 and get up at 6:00 or 6:30 if I oversleep.

Faith? Haven't any. I'm not a nihilist or a relativist. I don't believe in anything but change. I'm a Heraclitean - you can't step in the same river twice.

I'm a chameleon, so changeable. I see myself as a gadfly and a questioner.

I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.

Concrete you can mold, you can press it into - after all, you haven't any straight lines in your body. Why should we have straight lines in our architecture? You'd be surprised when you go into a room that has no straight line - how marvelous it is that you can feel the walls talking back to you, as it were.

Architecture is art, nothing else.

Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating.