Philip Johnson’s grandiose pavilion for the 1964 World’s Fair wasn’t the only skeleton exhumed from his past today. The first public viewing of the pavilion in 27 years was followed by the release online of the renowned architect’s FBI file by the Paleofuture blog.
Philip Johnson
After 27 Years, a New York World’s Fair Relic Reopens to the Public
The public was invited inside a New York City architectural monument today for a view that has been off-limits for 27 years. The New York State Pavilion, designed by Philip Johnson, was open for just a few hours this afternoon.
50 Years on, a World’s Fair Ruin Might Finally Find a Future
The 1964 New York World’s Fair was meant to be an idealistic vision of the future propelled by technology and design, but 50 years later the pavilion created to showcase the best of the state of New York is its most visible ruin.
The Water Gardens of Otherworldly Modernism
FORT WORTH, Texas —Some Modernist landscapes are so futuristic, so weirdly alien in their urban surroundings, they look like sets for a sci-fi movie. In the case of the “Fort Worth Water Gardens” designed by Philip Johnson with partner John Burgee, the immense shapes of concrete that rise up topographically into a mountain and descend into a watery vortex are both a 1970s vision of public space and the setting for one of the era’s dystopian films.
In Search of Unexpected Design Treasures
I think I’ve admitted this before on Hyperallergic, but I love auctions, they are a guilty pleasure. Not the big ticket auctions that grab all the headlines but the ones where it is still possible to find real treasures.
Artist David Salle On How He Ended Up at Philip Johnson’s Glass House
A good segment by The Glass House invites 1980s art superstar David Salle to the compound in New Canaan, Connecticut to explain how his works got into Philip Johnson’s collection.
Join Frank Stella as He Visits Philip Johnson’s Iconic Glass House
Philip Johnson’s Glass House has become a symbol of 20th C. American architecture. Here artist Frank Stella, who was a friend of Johnson, revisits the estate and talks about the elder statesman of American architecture and the uniqueness of the site.
5 Awesome Modernist US Homes Turned Museums
Next month, the very first sunken conversation pit will open to the public as a museum. The Indianapolis Museum of Art plans to open a private residence designed by Eero Saarinen for industrialist J. Irwin Miller as a design and architecture showcase, featuring interiors (and the conversation pit) by Alexander Girard. To celebrate, we’ve collected the best of American’s modernist houses turned museums, magnificent private residences now made public. There’s Philip Johnson’s Glass House, of course, but also Richard Neutra’s Neutra VDL, Louis Sullivan’s early Charnley-Persky House and Richard Meier’s epic bachelor pad, the Rachofsky House. Get ready for real estate envy — but take heart, you can go visit any of these homes.
Die Die Die: A Survey
This is an artist’s essay that explores some of the ideas put forward in Powers’ three-part essay, “Art, Not Suicide,” published earlier this week. -Ed. Note