Philip Johnson

 Philip is such a tough name- is it with 1 "L" in the middle or two? Which one's more common? Is the former American Idol contestant and writer of the hit song "Home," named "Phillip Phillips" one L or two? (I checked it's two). But then the famous artist and the first ever winner of the Pritzker Prize, Philip Johnson, is with 1 L. Go figure. 

MJ and I were seriously considering going to visit "the Glass House," Philip Johnson's most famous piece, in New Canaan, CT this Memorial Day weekend, but we butchered the planning and didn't get tickets! Apparently all of these fancy architectural and artsy outdoor places that are trendy for tourists to visit require reservations, like Fallingwater in Pennsylvania and the new "Edge" in Hudson Yards, NY. You can't just give them your money! 

Postmodern architecture: I did not know this but it's the one that came AFTER modern architecture (hey, naming that makes sense) MJ and I's favorite type of architecture, all those Frank Lloyd Wright, Vander Rohe pieces. But the Glass House was actually a MODERNIST piece that PJ created in the early parts of his career. Can't just straddle two different eras like that, Philip! The Seagram Building in New York is apparently part of the postmodern type of architecture, designed in 1958. And that's why people into architecture like those big cities like Chicago and New York and not like.....Cincinatti. The building itself IS the work of art, like the Guggenheim or the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Maybe the pandemic de-emphasized the importance of working in certain buildings and going to work in a fancy building, but it's still nice to have all these great cities to look at. It's why people like the movie "Her" which was filmed in Shanghai; lots of pretty buildings to look at. It's like what I mentioned earlier about if aliens came to Earth after humans die out due to some mass extinction event, but the buildings were still there: they would at least appreciate some of the art and architecture that was put into those buildings. And also it's why MJ loves cities and dislikes riding through small towns; I get it. No big building to put something on the map. 

Philip Johnson actually called architecture the "art of how to waste space." (it's amazing what a good Wikipedia deep dive will do). It is interesting how the Germans (the other famous one is Luis Van der Rohe was the Farnsworth House in Illinois) employed simplicity like the simple rectangle. Something about the German aesthetic I guess, but I sympathize with the "I don't need a fancy tree house, circles and shapes everywhere, I just need a building with neat sides and corners to look at. It's really a high class problem, one of those things that for lower-class people is so trivial because they're worried about paying the bills, feeding the family, and getting through every day one at a time, but for those with those basic needs taken care of, it is really a higher state of life to enjoy architecture. I would guess that many more adults like architecture more as they get older; maybe they're like me, after getting through the tough years of competition, getting into college, trying to find a job, and focusing on doing everything to make it in life, then you find time to enjoy the finer things. Architecture and glass houses.