In “The Man in the Glass House,” Mark Lamster’s brisk, clear-eyed new biography of Johnson, we are asked to contemplate why the impresario of twentieth-century architecture descended into such a morass of far-right politics—and how, given the depths to which he fell, he managed to clamber his way not just out of it, but to the top. [...] Johnson managed to abjure his past and, on the march toward an exceptionally successful career, leave it behind. — The New Yorker
The New Yorker reviews the new Philip Johnson biography, The Man in the Glass House by architecture critic and professor Mark Lamster, and examines how Johnson eagerly embraced Fascism before WWII and still rose to great fame as America's iconic 20th-century architect.
"Indeed, it is difficult to think of an American as successful as Johnson who indulged a love for Fascism as ardently and as openly," writes Nikil Saval in his The New Yorker piece. "His design for Father Coughlin’s rally had been inspired by his tours of Italian Fascist architecture—though the white stage was drywall, it was meant to look like marble—and, critically, by the 'febrile excitement' that attended his visit to a National Socialist youth event in Potsdam, in 1932."
2 Comments
There is no dichotomy between fascism and America.
I doubt Johnson designed any of his supposed works. He didn’t even draw. Considering him an “architect” is insulting. Whether or not he wanted to disconnect architecture from social concerns is irrelevant considering that LeC, FLW, Mies went around and dominated him. But NYers love Johnson because he’s their dream bureaucratic figure with a better narrative then built legacy.
This New Yorker narrative of Johnson (and the book?) giving him undue credit for creating Modernism and then Starchitecture with a Nazi undercurrent is a bit too easy. Good job for reintroducing Mies to America — but the Glass House sucks.
Solidarity with FLW — gonna pass on this one.
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