Get to Know Philip Johnson’s Iconic Architecture
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Explore the signature structures of influential American architect Philip Johnson
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Architectural Digest
Explore the signature structures of the influential American architect

Even before he began designing buildings, Philip Johnson (1906–2005) was influencing architecture. At age 26, the Cleveland native and Harvard graduate became the first director of the department of architecture at the Museum of Modern Art. During his tenure at MoMA, Johnson promoted the work of modern architects including Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius, and along with Henry-Russell Hitchcock, he curated the controversial 1932 show “Modern Architecture: International Exhibition,” which introduced America to European modernism. Johnson returned to Harvard in 1940 to study architecture with Marcel Breuer, and in the late 1940s and ’50s he designed several of his most iconic structures, including his New Caanan, Connecticut, residence, the Glass House, and the Seagram Building in New York, which was a collaboration with Mies van der Rohe. In 1979, Johnson was the first recipient of the Pritzker Prize. From his early modern structures to his later postmodern buildings, Johnson defined several architectural movements over the course of his decades-long career.