"After 50 years, you shouldn't do the same thing," says Philip Johnson, FAIA, describing his recent design for a multidomed, Byzantine-inspired addition to the Robert C. Wiley House, a chaste, Modernist box he designed in 1956. The comment, of course, could apply to Johnson's career in general. Architecture's great chameleon, Johnson has changed his colors with nearly every passing style—delighting the media with his nimble aesthetic and annoying colleagues who staked their reputations on the last wave. From his heralding of the International Style in 1932 to his stripped-down neoclassical designs for the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center (1964) and the Boston Public Library (1973) and his championing of Postmodernism in the 1980s and Deconstructionism in the 1990s, Johnson has always anticipated the next great thing. He has famously called himself "a whore," and some critics have agreed. As he turns 95 on July 8, he's still designing in many modes—from three-dimensional collage for a real-estate developer in New York City to whimsical historicism for a fan in Vermont. Now in partnership with Alan Ritchie, Johnson comes to his office in the Seagram Building three days a week and works on projects large and small, from New Canaan to Qatar. Recently he and Ritchie discussed their new work with RECORD's Clifford Pearson and Suzanne Stephens.
Architectural Record: You have projects in various stages of development all over the world—from an addition to the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, to a folly in Vermont and a mixed-use, urban redevelopment project in Liverpool, England. That's a lot to juggle, isn't it?
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