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" If architects weren't arrogant, they wouldn't be architects. I don't know a modest good architect. "
Philip Johnson
Arrogant
Architect
Modest
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" 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. "
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" I'm a chameleon, so changeable. I see myself as a gadfly and a questioner. "
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" I wouldn't build a building if it wasn't of interest to me as a potential work of art. Why should I? "
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" 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. "
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" You cannot not know history. "
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" Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful. "
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" All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space. "
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" How does an artist know when the line that he just painted is good or not good? That's the catch. De Kooning was the greatest of my contemporaries in art, and he knew when he'd done a good line. When he didn't, he threw it away. I wish I'd thrown away some of mine. "
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Wish
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" It is wonderful to be in the country in a glass house, because no matter what happens out there, you're nice and safe, you know, cuddled in your little bed, and there it is, raging storms, snowing - wonderful. "
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" 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. "
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Thought
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" 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. "
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" The future of architecture is culture. "
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" Maybe, just maybe, we shall at last come to care for the most important, most challenging, surely the most satisfying of all architectural creations: building cities for people to live in. "
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" Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston. "
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" In my own work, I'd say I'm a classicist, but I look everywhere for my solutions. I don't study the toilet-living habits of my clients, although that's a popular approach. First, I think of every building in history that has been similar in purpose. Then I think of the functional program - that's a major part of the study. "
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" 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. "
Philip Johnson
Talking
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" There's only one reason for my whole life, and that's art. Nothing else counts; nothing else gives me pleasure; nothing else gives me satisfaction. "
Philip Johnson
Art
Me
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" 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. "
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Step
River
Faith
" Doing a house is so much harder than doing a skyscraper. "
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Than
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" 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. "
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Boring
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" All architects want to live beyond their deaths. "
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" I call myself a traditionalist, although I have fought against tradition all my life. "
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" Architecture is the art of how to waste space. "
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" I'm about four skyscrapers behind. "
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" I hate vacations. If you can build buildings, why sit on the beach? "
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" Dullness is the enemy. "
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" Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating. "
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" The first complete sentence out of my mouth was probably that line about consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds. "
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" Glibness will get your anywhere. "
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" Anybody can build a building, putting some doors into it, but how many times have you been in a building that moves you to tears the way Beethoven's 'Eighth' does? "
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