Philip (Cortelyou) Johnson

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 City, from 1932 to 1934 and from 1945 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 City de­si­gned in col­la­bo­ra­tion with the Ame­ri­can ar­chi­tect Lud­wig Mies van der Rohe; the Kline Sci­ence Cen­ter at Yale Uni­ver­sity (1962, New Haven); and the AT & T head­quar­ters (1984) in New York City, which arou­sed con­tro­versy for its use of a ba­ro­que pe­di­ment atop 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).