David Byrne meets Philip Johnson

When the idea of modernism was brought to NY from Europe, much of its idealist utopian socialist baggage was left behind; it became, in America, mainly through the efforts of Johnson and his circle, a style rather than the structural and architectural equivalent of a political movement.

People in Glass Houses: David Byrne descobre os segredos da Glass House de Philip Johnson. Pelo meio, compara-a com as casas dos Trópicos e as cabanas de África. Algo assim. Mas faz um interessante retrato do homem por detrás da arquitectura. Byrne define a casa como um “cocktail lounge” modernista e conjectura sobre a natureza complexa de Johnson - um apologista imediato do modernismo como força poderosa que mudaria o mundo, para depois seguir o seu caminho pelos sabores do tempo em diferentes estilos. Com panache e um enorme ego. Como deve ser.

David Byrne meets Philip Johnson
People in Glass Houses: David Byrne uncovers the secrets of The Glass House by Philip Johnson. Along the way he compares it to the houses in the Tropics and the huts in Africa. Well, sort of. But he makes an interesting portrait of the man behind the architecture. He curiously defines the house as a modernist cocktail lounge, and wonders about Johnson’s complex nature – “a proselytizer and an advocate of styles”, an early believer of modernism as a powerful force that would change the world, who then followed his own path through the flavors of time into different styles. With panache and a huge ego. As it should be.