Philip Johnson ~ what the obits left out
Hyfler/Rosner
BYLINE: By Mark Stevens NY Times
Mark Stevens is the art critic of New York magazine and the
co-author of ''De Kooning: An American Master.''
HE death last week of Philip Johnson, the nonagenarian
enfant terrible, brought 20th-century architecture to a
symbolic close. Even Mr. Johnson's friends sometimes doubted
that he was an architect of the first rank, but friend and
foe alike agreed that he was an emblematic figure of his
time.
But emblematic of what? In death, his role in American
culture will come into sharper focus, and it's a darker
picture than many have thought.
Traditionally, Mr. Johnson is presented as the great
champion of modern architecture -- organizer of the landmark
1932 Museum of Modern Art show on the International Style,
and architect of the Glass House on his Connecticut estate,
which quickly came to symbolize American modernism. He is
equally celebrated for abandoning classical modernism in the
late 50's and adopting in the decades that followed a
succession of styles that mirrored the changing taste of the
time.
It hardly mattered that many of his skyscrapers were
corporate schmaltz; he was an enlivening, generous figure, a
man who charmingly described himself as a ''whore'' as he
picked the corporate pocket. Always ready to challenge the
earnest, Mr. Johnson, who understood Warhol as well as Mies,
became both an icon and an iconoclast.
Only one aspect marred this picture: His embrace of fascism
during the 1930's, which was mentioned only in passing in
most obituaries. He later called his ideological infatuation
''stupidity'' and apologized whenever pressed on the matter;
as a form of atonement, he designed a synagogue for no fee.
With a few exceptions, critics typically had little interest
in the details, granting Mr. Johnson a pass for a youthful
indiscretion.
Then, in 1994, Franz Schulze's biography presented this
period of Mr. Johnson's life in some depth. Mr. Schulze's
account was as sympathetic as possible -- and many reviews
of the book still played down the importance of Mr.
Johnson's politics -- but it was clear that views of Mr.
Johnson's import for American culture would change
significantly.
Philip Johnson did not just flirt with fascism. He spent
several years in his late 20's and early 30's -- years when
an artist's imagination usually begins to jell -- consumed
by fascist ideology. He tried to start a fascist party in
the United States. He worked for Huey Long and Father
Coughlin, writing essays on their behalf. He tried to buy
the magazine American Mercury, then complained in a letter,
''The Jews bought the magazine and are ruining it,
naturally.'' He traveled several times to Germany. He
thrilled to the Nuremberg rally of 1938 and, after the
invasion of Poland, he visited the front at the invitation
of the Nazis.
He approved of what he saw. ''The German green uniforms made
the place look gay and happy,'' he wrote in a letter.
''There were not many Jews to be seen. We saw Warsaw burn
and Modlin being bombed. It was a stirring spectacle.'' As
late as 1940, Mr. Johnson was defending Hitler to the
American public. It seems that only an inquiry by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation -- and, presumably, the
prospect of being labeled a traitor if America entered the
war -- led him to withdraw completely from politics.
Today, any debate over an important figure with a fascist or
Communist background easily becomes an occasion for blame
games between right and left. Mr. Johnson is no exception.
Morally serious people can have different views of his
personal culpability.
But what's essential is to let the shadow fall -- to
acknowledge that fascism touched something important in his
sensibility. Throughout his life, he was an ardent admirer
of Nietzsche. His understanding of the great philosopher was
surely deeper than that of the Nazis, but he was overly
enchanted by the idea of ''a superior being,'' ''the will to
power'' and Nietzsche's view of art. And he loved the
monumental.
In an interview published in 1973, long after he renounced
fascism, Mr. Johnson said: ''The only thing I really regret
about dictatorships isn't the dictatorship, because I
recognize that in Julius's time and in Justinian's time and
Caesar's time they had to have dictators. I mean I'm not
interested in politics at all. I don't see any sense to it.
About Hitler -- if he'd only been a good architect!'' In
discussing Rome, he contrasted the poor artistic
achievements of the democratically elected Republic with
those of earlier regimes. ''So let's not be so fancy-pants
about who runs the country,'' he concluded. ''Let's talk
about whether it's good or not.''
Mr. Johnson's observation was refreshingly hard-nosed about
art's relation to politics: good politics is not now and
never will be a prerequisite for good art. But his emphasis
on the aesthetic as the only important value in art was
remarkably cold-blooded. His main regret seems to be that
contemporary republics have failed to create monuments that
ravish the senses.
He never became a fascist architect. But he was probably one
of those artists -- among them many Communists -- whose
philosophical sensibilities were gutted by the experience of
the 30's and World War II. Afterward, he lived more than
ever for the stylish surface, appearing uncomfortable with
large-minded ideas even when his buildings reached for the
sky.
Perhaps as a consequence, his imagination developed no
particular center. Nothing was intractable or
non-negotiable. He was remarkably free. He could toy,
sometimes beautifully, with history. He liked a splash. He
was a playful cynic, cultivating success even as he winked
at its vulgarity. If someone should complain, well, the
problem lay not in the artist but in the fallen world.
Philip Johnson now seems like an emblematic figure partly
because he appears to have been happily, marvelously,
provocatively, disturbingly hollow. It is an underlying fear
of Western culture, one that has lasted since World War II,
that there is no larger or ennobling content to mine. Mr.
Johnson's main flaws as an artist -- his tastes for
razzle-dazzle and overweening scale -- are equally the
weaknesses of American secular culture. His main
strengths -- his openness to change, playfulness and urbane
rejection of the Miss Grundys of the world -- are equally it
strengths.
The beautiful Glass House will remain Mr. Johnson's
signature work. It is the transparent heart of a collection
of eclectic buildings in New Canaan, Conn. It's a dream
house, a stylish stage set. It floats upon the land, eliding
boundaries between inside and outside. It seems full of
emptiness. It's not really a place to live, but was still
Mr. Johnson's essential home. That uneasy stylishness
deserves emphasis. Philip Johnson lived in a glass house. He
threw stones, too.