Johnson returned home certain his life had been transformed. He found in Nazism a new international ideal. The aesthetic power and exaltation he experienced in viewing modernist architecture found its complete national expression in the Hitler-centered Fascist movement. Here was a way not merely to rebuild cities with a unified and monumental aesthetic vision for the Machine Age but to spur a rebirth of mankind itself. He had never expressed any interest in politics before. That had now changed. — Vanity Fair
"Over the next two years, Johnson moved back and forth between Europe and New York City. At home, he mounted shows and promoted modernist artists whose works he considered the best of the new. All the while, he kept an eye on the Nazis as they consolidated power. He had slept with his share of men in the demimonde of Weimar Berlin; now he turned a blind eye to Nazi restrictions on homosexual behavior, which brought imprisonment and even death sentences."
Read the rest of this fascinating excerpt from Marc Wortman's forthcoming book, 1941: Fighting the Shadow War in Vanity Fair. For more on Philip Johnson, check out these links:
9 Comments
self loathing homosexual fascist
This story again? On a certain date every year, we must have the PJ nazi discussion....
Correct. Tomorrow is der Fuhrer's birthday, so April 19 is national PJ was a Nazi Day.
Good to know.
Nicholas, What about in his latter years of his practice - did he remain intrigued years after WW2 ended?
Quite the whore too.
@David C. McFadden – the original article, which was published by Vanity Fair, suggests he tried fairly hard to cover his tracks – less through public distancing than encouraging collective amnesia (apparently ineffectively).
key attributes of being a succesful architect: homosexual fascist heir
"self loathing homosexual fascist"
unfair, strong and amplifying use of an combinatory adjective.
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