Architect Philip Johnson Was The Builder of Glass Cities - D Magazine
Feb 28, 2019Six years earlier, John F. Kennedy had been killed in the streets of Dallas, and now some members of the Dallas community wanted to erect a memorial to commemorate the late president. Johnson wasn’t a surprising choice. He was one of the most well-known architects in the United States, with a professional pedigree that stretched back through the role he played in the foundation of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.He had also emerged as something of a darling among Texas society circles, designing the homes of the Menils in Houston and the Becks in Dallas, among others. In Fort Worth, Johnson’s sleek, tough, reserved Amon Carter Museum—with a design that recalled the Parthenon—demonstrated his aptitude for creating buildings that could blend thoughtful elegance while proclaiming a certain amount of cultural prestige. Marcus hoped Johnson could bring a similar sensibility to the memorial—and it didn’t hurt that the charismatic social darling was also a friend of Jackie O’s.Superblock: The Crescent epitomizes the schizophrenia of Johnson’s postmodern period, dressing up what is essentially a massive mall, office tower, and hotel with a mishmash of architectural decorations, lifted from inspirations ranging from Paris to Galveston.Joseph HaubertIn his new biography of Johnson, The Man in the Glass House (Little, Brown), Dallas Morning News architecture critic Mark Lamster recounts how an entire city block next to the Old Red Courthouse was cleared to make way for Johnson’s memorial—a white concrete box floating above a memorial on a set of four steel feet. It was a nonstarter—empty, lonely, and inert.“It was supposed to look austere and dramatic, but instead just looked forlorn, like a plinth missing its statue,” Lamster writes. “The whole project had a dreary rather than melancholy air. It was also wholly unoriginal; the entire scheme—a room with a square memorial table—was taken s...
