Published in 2009, this collection includes essays by Beatriz Colomina, Peter Eisenman, Kurt W. Forster, Mark Jarzombek,
Charles Jencks, Phyllis Lambert, Reinhold Martin, Detlef Mertins, Joan Ockman,
Terence Riley, Vincent Scully, Michael Sorkin, Kazys Varnelis, Stanislaus von
Moos, Ujjval Vyas, and Mark Wigley.
In this book, sixteen eminent voices in the
architectural establishment present their ideas on Johnson, focusing on both his
eclectic design approach and his vivid intellect. Among the topics covered are
Johnson’s wide-ranging knowledge of art history, his endorsement of different
versions of architectural modernism, his use of rhetoric and the mass media, his
social persona, and his politics of patronage. Owing perhaps to the control he exerted over
critiques of his work, few scholarly treatments of Johnson exist. This
“unauthorized” account, the first in-depth study to follow his death,
constitutes a milestone in the analysis of one of America’s most renowned
architects.
Edited by Emmanuel J. Petit
Foreward by Robert A.M. Stern
274 pp.
