Architecture
Johnsonmania
Gavin Stamp
What other architectural lecture has ever been previewed in 'Barometer' in Harper 's '1 Queen? Philip Johnson — whose 'Chippendale design for the A.T.& T. tower actually appeared on the front page of the late Thnes was over from New York to give the 'Annual Discourse' at the RIBA recently. Johnson has 'star quality' in an unglamorous profession; an amazingly spry 72, he did not disappoint. His talk was witty, Ironic — 'It's great the British still practice Modern Architecture' — and topical, but as Well as tumultuous applause there were scowls when the muzak (yes — muzak) was turned on again. Fully alive to the mood of the time, Johnson, once the acolyte of Mies van der Robe, is broadening his work by reference to tradition and this is regarded as a betrayal by the British avant-garde establishment, Who still cling to 'Modern Movement moral r: for self-respect and self-justification. They do not like to hear that there are 'Plenty of socialists, or "do-gooders", and _tbat most modern architecture has failed h 'cause it has `no connection with what People want'. Not that there is anything Shocking about Johnson, who long ago had the honesty and sense to admit that 'we cannot know history', for his new book Phil Johnson: Writings (Oxford £14) reveals that he has been pointing out the 'Imitations of the Modern Movement for Years.
Some of his Discourse was the usual architect's megalomania: the vision of the great new city, with which Frank Lloyd Wright and Albert Speer could sympathize (although Johnson seems unaware that we are trying to build such a nightmare at wtlton Keynes). Much more interesting was Johnson telling the British to use our eyes, how we have ruined our cities with the ugliness of our towers. He condemned orthodox T-square planning — 'A terrible, terrible thing has happened — you have tried to straighten out London'.— now that he can see the special beauty of 'streets that wander, which curve unnecessarily'. Some modern things he admires, Norman Posters Sainsbury Centre, for instance — 'a pure ordinary masterpeice' — but as engineeering, not architecture. For architecture, Johnson encouraged us to take two architects more seriously, one living, one dead. The living is James Stirling — 'if we have anything like genius around today' — who has no work in Britain at present. The other is 'the greatest architect you've ever had' — Edwin Lutyens, upon whose merits Johnson dwelt at some length — 'more interesting than Frank Lloyd Wright, more up to date than Corbusier'. (Arts Council, please note). Johnson's other new hero from the past is the creator of the character of Mount Street (which he noticed from his room in the Connaught), Ernest George. Ernest George? Even if they have heard of him (a very good architect, in fact), most British architects have been training to despise his sort of picturesque Victorian eclecticism. But Johnson does not want to copy the past — 'I am a Modern Architect. No way I can get functionalism, structural clarity, flat surfaces, out of my system' — but to improve architecture by learning from George's sympathetic and varied response to the environment, 'to broaden it out a bit'. After all, 'any architect today worth his salt does pay attention to his surroundings'.
Johnson's real message was that 'the next phases of Modern might be when architects are popular again', by the use of symbolism, mouldings, decoration, etc; clients will pay if they get what they want — 'what's wrong with roofs' sweeping to the ground?' For many British architects, inextricably involved as they are with collectivist notions and state patronage of architecture, a great deal is wrong— they know how people ought to live. Johnson's individualism, his readiness to satisfy clients — 'It's perfectly all right to design anything — as long as you get paid for it' — they deplore. Of course, really they are just jealous; jealous of Johnson's success and of his wealth, for he began with an inherited fortune.
But there are other _ aspects of Philip Johnson which elicit disapproval. It is not just that Johnson is a flamboyant bachelor when most architects lead lives of exemplary respectability; he also has a PAST. Johnson initially read philosophy, became an enthusiast for Modern Art and, in 1932, wrote, with Hitchcock, the famous book on the International Style. He only took up architecture in 1940. Readers of his new book may notice a curious lacuna between 1934 and 1942, when Johnson appears to have done nothing. Like many privileged young men who were outraged by conditions in the early Thirties, Johnson went into politics with naive optimism — but, as it turned out, on the wrong side. He joined several right-wing parties and visited Nazi Germany where he hoped a modern architecture would thrive (Mies, after all, stayed on until 1937 — what was he doing?) I do not mention this to be scurrilous or to criticize, for I agree with Johnson that political opinions have no bearing upon the quality of an artist's work, but to make a point about tolerance. Johnson was forgiven, particularly by New York Jews who are prominent among his friends and clients, and Mrs John D. Rockefeller stated that 'every young man should be allowed to make one large mistake'. This would not have happened in Britain where a Blackshirt past is the worst possible skeleton-in the-cupboard, while Communist Party membership is a respectable pedigree (viz. the number of one-time card-carriers in the LCC Architects Dept. who gave us the City of Towers — but that story has yet to be told).
Philip Johnson transcends politics as he now transcends doctrinaire theories because he cares most about building Architecture. This is not the place to make a critical assessment of his work, only to observe that it has more style and substance than that of our own knighted Moderns. Revelling in the freedom of his young old age, he is still an optimist — 'Maybe we're in for a new Edwardian period', but Edwardian architecture was not cheap and if we want money spent on truly popular buildings the future here depends as much upon Mrs Thatcher as upon architects.
Postscript: Johnson has just been awarded the International Architecture Award by the American Government. He is giving a tenth of the $100,000 prize to a new British magazine, International Architecture, which will appear in October, edited by Haig Beck.
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