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Modmom1
Joined: 03 Dec 2017 Posts: 76
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 12:06 pm Post subject: Wright discussed in Lamster's new Philip Johnson book |
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Not being a fan of Philip Johnson, I thought I would skip reading Mark Lamster's"The Man in the Glass House: Philip Johnson Architect of the Modern Century, thinking it would glorify the man. I came across this review of the book by Kate Wagner (McMansion Hell) in The Nation and it changed my mind:
https://www.thenation.com/article/philip-johnson-man-in-the-glass-house-mark-lamster-review/
Just started it, but it has a good discussion of the tension between Wright and Johnson as well as Schindler (after Neutra's inclusion in the 1932 MOMA show while Schindler was left off as a "stylist". ) Interesting book that I look forward to finishing. Not the glorification I expected.
BTW MOMA has the 1932 Modern architecture : international exhibition, New York, Feb. 10 to March 23, 1932, Museum of Modern Art
catalogue online for those interested:
https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_2044_300061855.pdf |
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DRN
Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 3659 Location: Cherry Hill, NJ
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 12:53 pm Post subject: |
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A glaring error in the otherwise good article:
Quote: | and the glass turrets of the Pittsburgh Power and Gas Tower—literally a corporate castle built for the rule of a new, neoliberal generation of the business elite. |
PPG = Pittsburgh Plate Glass.....hence the emphasis on the use of glass at the site known as PPG Place. |
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Roderick Grant
Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 8881
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 2:41 pm Post subject: |
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That's quite a blooper.
What did Johnson do for Trump? Trump Tower was designed by Donald "Der" Scutt, Trump's go-to architect.
The Palazzo della Civilta Italiana looks like Edward Durrell Stone's Perpetual Savings & Loan tower on Wilshire Blvd. and McCarthy Dr. Just add flower boxes with dangling philodendrons to all the windows (nowadays deleted) and you have it.
John Burgee was Johnson's best collaborator. Without a collaborator, Johnson was at sea. The IDS Building in Minneapolis is their outstanding accomplishment. |
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DRN
Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 3659 Location: Cherry Hill, NJ
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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Paul Goldberger's review of the book goes into a little detail, but names no names/addresses:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/books/review/mark-lamster-philip-johnson-man-in-the-glass-house.html
Quote: | ...But he was also a shameless publicity hound, which is why it is telling that toward the end of his career, when his longstanding professional partnership with John Burgee had ended and he was continuing to practice on his own, he took on as a client a certain developer by the name of Donald Trump. He and Trump needed each other: Trump wanted a famous name, and Johnson was desperate to stay in the game. Johnson produced a few lousy buildings for Trump, who probably didn’t know the difference; all he cared about was being able to claim that they were designed by Philip Johnson. And Johnson got to stay in the public eye.
The Trump chapter of Johnson’s long career seemed just a bizarre footnote when it happened in the 1990s. Now, it is a little harder to dismiss. Outwardly, the two men could not have been more different: Johnson could talk circles around anyone, and Trump is verbally inept. Johnson had contempt for Trump’s vulgarity and lack of intellectual curiosity, and Trump had no understanding of Johnson’s cultivation. The beautiful little study at the Glass House would have been a prison to Trump. But now that we know Trump as more than a real-estate developer, it is hard not to think back to Johnson’s infatuation with dictators, his snobbery, his obsession with being noticed, and wonder if they did not have a little more in common than it seemed back then.
Lamster’s timing is excellent: He has written the story of Philip Johnson for the age of Donald Trump, and it makes us see a side of Johnson that is, at the very least, sobering. Johnson, like Trump, made himself impossible to ignore. Lamster’s most important contribution may be to show us that, however electrifying the ability to command the spotlight may be, it does not confer the lasting qualities of greatness. |
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Modmom1
Joined: 03 Dec 2017 Posts: 76
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 3:22 pm Post subject: |
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Trump is one small part of this biography and was not in office when Lamster began research for his book.
Here is an interview with Mark Lamster (author & arch critic):
-snip
"When you embarked on this years-long research project, did you ever think it would have such contemporary pertinence? From the resurgence of the alt-right, to Johnson’s Trump connection?
Well Trump as president was not something that I had envisioned. And in all seriousness, the relevance of the politics was really important to me. I started writing this in the Obama presidency and it seemed to me the rise of populist proto-fascist right wing political parties in the 1930s was quite analogous to the rise of the sort of alt Tea Party movement in the beginning of the Obama years. And to me, that was very, very similar."
-snip
https://www.metropolismag.com/architecture/philip-johnson-biography-mark-lamster-interview/ |
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Roderick Grant
Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 8881
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 3:48 pm Post subject: |
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I would still be interested in specific structures that Johnson did for Trump. A lot of Trump's efforts did not meet with fruition. |
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peterm
Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Posts: 5987 Location: Chicago, Il.---Oskaloosa, Ia.
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 4:50 pm Post subject: |
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He’s right, the Tea Party’s white “populism” was the beginning of a proto alt right fascist tendency, and primarily existed as a reactionary response to the election of the first black president. We now are living with the devolved consequences.
People who endorse the current criminal administration are not dissimilar to Johnson in the 30s. |
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Modmom1
Joined: 03 Dec 2017 Posts: 76
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 5:09 pm Post subject: |
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Was Schindler's exclusion in the 1932 MOMA exhibition due to the fact he was Jewish?
It was noted in the book that at the time of the exhibit not only was Philip Johnson not a paid employee but he funded the exhibit. Money buys access. |
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peterm
Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Posts: 5987 Location: Chicago, Il.---Oskaloosa, Ia.
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 5:21 pm Post subject: |
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Probably more to do with his Socialism and refusal to embrace the one size fits all modernism coming out of Europe. Mainly, I think Johnson simply couldn’t understand Schindler. He was too advanced.
Neutra was Jewish, but Schindler wasn’t (his mother wasn’t Jewish). |
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SDR
Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 16947 Location: San Francisco
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 7:55 pm Post subject: |
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The Johnson biography of the previous generation, Franz Schulze's "PJ: life and work" of 1994, omits Schindler altogether, interestingly . . .
S |
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Reidy
Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 1473 Location: Fremont CA
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 8:22 pm Post subject: |
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According to people I've heard who knew Schindler (his physician and Esther McCoy), he was indifferent to politics. McCoy allowed that he complained about Roosevelt because he thought the New Deal had made plasterers too expensive (though he planned to vote for him anyway). |
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SDR
Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 16947 Location: San Francisco
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 8:39 pm Post subject: |
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It wouldn't surprise me that Johnson would find Schindler -- in the 'thirties -- uninteresting, even irrelevant, as his head was in a very different place. I would want to
know, however, if his assessment changed at all as the century wore on. Schindler didn't receive serious attention, as I get it, until Gebhard's book appeared, in 1980 ?
Whether Schindler was "too advanced" for Johnson is a question whose answer would depend on their respective points of view -- and on semantics ?
S |
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peterm
Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Posts: 5987 Location: Chicago, Il.---Oskaloosa, Ia.
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 8:49 pm Post subject: |
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Reidy- I should have been more precise. The entire scene was radical, artistic, bohemian and leftist, but undoubtedly driven as much by Schindler’s Socialist wife as Schindler himself. At the same time, I have read nothing which gives the indication that RMS was in disagreement with her:
“In the 1920s and early 1930s especially the house was the focus of constant social gatherings; there are reports of people drifting in at all hours. Maurice Browne, a founder of the Chicago Little Theatre, recalled in his autobiography that Pauline, “…brilliant, warmhearted, bitter-tongued…was trying to create a salon amid Hollywood’s cultural slagheap….” Frank Lloyd Wright and his son Lloyd, Edward Weston, John Cage, the progressive dancer John Bovingdon, the poet Sadakichi Hartmann, and Galka Scheyer were among those who passed through. Later, it was largely Mrs. Schindler’s initiative that established the house as a mecca for left-wing political activity in Los Angeles.”
https://makcenter.org/sites/schindler-house/
SDR- Johnson later changed his tune, though arguably it was too little and far too late:
“Years later Mr. Johnson revised his views on Schindler's work, saying that ''the omission was a mistake'' and that Schindler was a more enduring and interesting architect than many of those who once overshadowed him.”
Breezy Modernist Gets His Due; Honor at Last for an Architect Who Made California His Muse NY Times 2001 |
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Roderick Grant
Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 8881
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 9:53 pm Post subject: |
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According to Schindler's son, neither of his parents was Jewish. A Jewish docent in the 80s at the Schindler/Chase House asked the son about his Jewish heritage. He said his family was not Jewish, and seemed a bit shocked that she had asked the question. |
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peterm
Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Posts: 5987 Location: Chicago, Il.---Oskaloosa, Ia.
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