Yale School of Architecture

The Seven Crutches of Modern Architecture

Author(s): Philip Johnson
Source: Perspecta, Vol. 3 (1955), pp. 40-45
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of Perspecta.
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l . .
40
Photograph by
Norman Ives.
Phil ip Johnson,
activein the'thirties
as an architectural critic and
Director
of
the
Department of
Architecture
of
the Museum
of
Modern
Art,
has become
a
practicing
architect sinceWorl d War
II.
by Phil ip
Johnson
T he S even Crutches
of Modern Architecture
41
Remarksfrom an informal tal k to students of
Architectural
Design
at
Harvard,
December 1954
Art has
nothing
to do with intel l ectual
pursuit--it
shoul dn't be in a
university
at
al l . Art shoul d be
practised
in
gutters-pardon me,
in attics.
You can't l earn architecture
any
morethan
you
can l earn a sense
of
music or
of
painting.
You shoul dn't tal k about
art, you
shoul d do it.
If
I seem to
go
into wordsit's becausethere'sno other
way
to communicate.
Ve haveto descend to the worl d around us
if
we are to battl eit. Wehave to use
ivordsto
put
the"word"
peopl e
back where
theybel ong.
S o I'm
going
to attack theseven crutches
of
architecture. S ome
of
us
rejoice
in
the crutchesand
pretznd
that we're
wal king
and that
poor
other
peopl e
with two
feet
are
sl ightl y handicapped.
But we al l use them at
times,
and
especial l y
in
the school swhere
you
haveto use
l anguage.
It's
onl y
natural to use
l anguage
when
you'reteaching,
becausehoware teachersto mark
you?
"Bad entrance"
or "Bathroomsnot backed
up"
or
"S tairway
too narrow" or
"W,here's
head
room?", "Chimney
won't
draw",
"Kitchen too
far from dining
room". It is so
much easier
for
the
facul ty
to set
up
a set
of
rul es that
you
can be marked
against. T hey
can't
say
"T hat's
ugl y".
For
you
can answer that
for you
it is
good-l ooking,
and de
gustibus
non est
disputandum.
S chool s
therefore
are
especial l y prone
to
using
these crutches. I woul d
certainl y
use them
if
I were
teaching,
because I coul dn't criticize extra-aesthetic
props any
better than
any
other teacher.
T he most
important
crutch in recent times is not val id now: the Crutch
of
History.
In the ol d
days you
coul d
al ways rel y
on books. You coul d
say,
"What do
you
mean
you
don't l ike
my
tower? T here it is in Wren. "
Or, "T hey
did that on the
S ubtreasury Buil ding-why
can't I do it?"
History
doesn't
bother us
very
much now.
But the next one is stil l with us
today al though,
here
again,
theCrutch
of
Pretty Drawing
is
pretty
wel l
gone.
T here are those
of
us-I am one-who
have made sort
of
a cul t
of
the
pretty pl an.
It's a
wonderful
crutch because
you
can
give yoursel f
the il l usion that
you
are
creating
architecturewhil e
you're making pretty drawings. Fundamental l y,
architecture is
something
you
buil d and
put together,
and
peopl e
wal k in and
they
l ike it. But that'stoo
hard.
Pretty pictures
are easier.
T he next
one,
the third one,
is the Crutch
of Util ity, of Useful ness.
T his is
where I was
brought up,
and I've used it
mysel f;
it was an ol d Harvard 7habit.
PERS PECT A: T he Yal e Architectural Journal
42
T hey say
a
buil ding
is
good
architecture
if
it works.
Of course,
thisis
poppy-
cock. Al l
buil dings
work. T his
buil ding (referring
to Hunt
Hal l )
works
perfect-
l y-if
I tal k l oud
enough.
T heParthenon
probabl y
worked
perfectl y
wel l
for
the
ceremoniesthat
they
used it
for.
In other
words, merel y
that a
buil ding
works
is not
sufficient.
You
expect
that it works. You
expect
a kitchen hot water
faucet
to run hot waterthese
days.
You
expect any architect,
a
graduateof
Harvard or
not,
to be abl eto
put
thekitchen in the
right pl ace.
But when it's
used as a crutch it
impedes.
It l ul l s
you
into
thinking
that that is architecture.
T herul es that we'veal l been
brought up
on "T hecoat cl oset shoul d be near the
front
doorin a
house",
"Cross-ventil ation is a
necessity",-these
rul es are
not
very important for
architecture. T hat we shoul d have a
front
door to come
in and a back doorto
carry
the
garbageout-pretty good,
but in
my
houseI
noticed to
my
horror the other
day
that I carried the
garbage
out the
front
door.
If
the business
of getting
the houseto run wel l takes
precedence
over
your
art-
istic invention the resul t won't be architectureat
al l ; merel y
an
assembl ageof
useful parts.
You wil l
recognize
it next time
you'redoing
a
buil ding: you'l l
be
so
satisfied
when
you get
the banks
of
el evators to come out at the
right fl oor
you'l l think
your skyscraper
is
finished.
I know.
I'm just working
on
one.
T hat's not as
bad, though,
as the next one: the Crutch
of Comfort.
T hat's a
habit that we come
by,
the same as
util ity.
We are al l descended
from
Joihn
S tuart Mil l in our
thinking. After al l ,
what is architecture
for
but the
comforts
of
the
peopl e
that l ive there?But when that is madeinto a crutch
for doing
architecture,
environmental control starts to
repl ace
architecture.
Pretty
soon
you'l l
be
doing
control l ed environmental houses which aren't hard to do
except
that
you may
have a window on the west and
you can't
control the sun.
T here isn't an
overhang
in the
worl d,
there isn't a sun chart in Harvard IUniv-
ersity
that wil l
ihel p. Because, of course,
the sun is
absol utel y everywhere.
You know what
they
mean
by
control l ed environment-it is the
study of
"microcl imatol ogy",
which is thesciencethat tel l s
you
howto recreatea
cl imate so that
you
wil l be
comfortabl e.
But are
you?
T he
firepl ace, for
ex-
ampl e,
is out
of pl ace
in the control l ed environment
of
a house. It heats
up
and throws
off
thermostats. But I l ike the
beauty of
a
firepl ace
so I
keep my
thermostat
way
down to
60,
and then I
l ight
a
big roaring fire
so I can move
back and
forth.
Now that's not control l ed environment. I control the environ-
ment. It's a l ot more
fun.
S ome
peopl e say
that chairs are
good-l ooking
that are
comfortabl e.
Are
they?
I think that
comfort
is a
function of
whether
you
think the chair is
good-l ooking
or not. Just test it
yoursel f. (Except
I know
you
won't be honest with
me. )
I
have had Mies van der Rohe chairs now
for twenty-fiveyears
in
my
home
whereverI
go. T hey're
not
very comfortabl echairs, but, if peopl e
l ike the
l ooks
of
them
they say
"Aren't these
beautiful chairs,"
which indeed
they
are.
T hen
they'l l
sit in them and
say, "My,
aren't
they comfortabl e. " If, however,
they're
the kind
of peopl e
who think
curving
steel
l egs
are an
ugl y way
to l hol d
up
a chair
they'l l say "My,
what
uncomfortabl e
chairs. "
43
T he Crutch
of Cheapness.
T hat is one that
you
haven't run into as students
because no one's tol d
you
to cut
$10,000 off
the
budget
because
you
haven't
buil t
anything.
But that'l l be
your first
l esson. T he
cheapness boys
wil l
say
"Anybody
can buil d an
expensive
house.
Ah,
but
see, my
house
onl y
cost
$25,000. " Anybody
that can buil d a
$25,000
house
ihas
indeed reason to be
proud,
but is he
tal king
about architectureor his economic
abil ity?
Is it the
crutch
you're tal king about,
or is it architecture? T hat economic
motive, for
instance, goes
in New York so
far
that the real estate minded
peopl e
consider
it un-American to buil d a Lever House with no rental s on the
ground fl oor.
T hey find
that it's an architectural sin not to
fil l
the
envel ope.
T hen there's another
very
bad crutch that you wil l
get
much l ater in
your
career.
Pl ease, pl ease
watch out
for
this one: the Crutch
of S erving
the
Cl ient. You can
escape
al l criticism
if you
can
say, "Wel l ,
the cl ient wanted
it that
way. "
Mr.
Hood,
one
of
our
real l y great architects,
tal ked
exactl y
that
way.
He woul d
put
a Gothic door on a
skyscraper
and
say "Why
shoul d-
n't I? T he cl ient wanted a Gothic door on the modern
skyscraper,
and I
put
it on. Becausewhat is
my
business? Am I not hereto
pl ease my
cl ient?"
As one
of
the
boys
asked me
during
the dinner
before
the
l ecture,
where do
you
draw the l ine? W,hen do the cl ient's demands
permit you
to shoot
him,
and
when do
you give
in
graceful l y?
It's
got
to be
cl ear,
back in
your
own
mind,
that
serving
the cl ient is one
thing
and the art
of
architecture another.
Perhaps
the most troubl e
of
al l is the Crutch
of
S tructure. T hat
gets awful l y
near home
because, of course,
I use it al l the time
mysel f.
I'm
going
to
go
on
using
it. You
Ihave
to use
something.
Like
Bucky Ful l er,
who's
going
around
from
school to school -it's l ike a
hurricane, you
can't miss it
if
it's
coming:
he
tal ks, you know, for five
or six
hours,
and he ends
up
that al l architecture
is
nonsense,
and
you
haveto buil d
something
l ike discontinuousdomes. T he
arguments
are
beautiful .
I have
nothing against
discontinuous
domes,
but
for
goodness sakes,
l et's not cal t it architecture. Have
you
ever seen
Bucky trying
to
put
a door into one
of
his domed
buil dings?
He's never
succeeded,
and wise-
l y,
when he does
them,
he doesn't
put any covering
on
them,
so
they
are
magni-
ficent pieces of pure scul pture. S cul pture
al one cannot resul t in architecture
because architecture has
probl ems
that
Bucky
Ful l er has not
faced,
l ike how do
you get
in and out. S tructure is a
very dangerous thing
to
cl ing
to. You can be
l ead to bel ieve that cl ear structure
cl earl y expressed
wil l end
up being
archi-
tecture
by itsel f.
You
say
"I don't have to
design any
more. Al l I have to do
is make a cl ean structural order. " I have bel ieved this
off
and on
mysel f.
It's
a
very
nice
crutch, you see, because, after al l , you
can't mess
up
a
buil ding
too
badl y if
the
bays
are al l
equal
and al l the windows the same size.
Now
why
shoul d we at this
stage
be that crutch conscious?
Why
shoul d we not
step right up
to it and
face
it? T he act
of
creation. T he act
of creation,
l ike
birth and
death, you
have to
face by yoursel f.
T here aren't
any rul es;
there
is no one to tel l
you
whether
your
onechoiceout
of, say,
six bil l ion
for
the
PERS IPECT A: T he Yal e Architectural Journal
44
proportion of
a windowis
going
to be
right.
No onecan
go
with
you
into that
room where
you
makethe
final
decision. You can't
escape
it
anyhow; why
fight
it?
Why
not real izethat architectureis the sum
of inescapabl e
artistic
decisionsthat
you
haveto make.
If you'restrongyou
can makethem.
I l ikethe
thought
that what weareto do on thisearth is to embel l ish it
for
its
greater beauty,
so that
oncoming generations
can l ook back to the
shapes
we
l eave here and
get
the same thril l that I
get
in
l ooking
back at theirs-at the
Parthenon,
at ChartesCathedral . T hat is the
duty-I
doubt
if
I
get
around
to it in
my generation-thedifficul ties
aretoo
many,
but
you
can. You can
if you'restrong enough
not to botherwith the
crutches,
and
face
the
fact
that
to create
something
is a direct
experience.
I l ike Corbusier's
definition of
architecture. He
expressed
it the
way
I wish
I coul d have:
"L'architecture, c'est
l e
jeux, savant,
correct et
magnifique,
des
formes
sous l a l umiere" "Architecture is the
pl ay of forms
under the
l ight,
the
pl ay of forms correct, wise, magnificent. "
T he
pl ay of forms
under the
l ight. And, my friends,
that's al l it is. You can embel l ish archi-
tecture
by putting
toil ets in. But there was
great
architecture
l ong before
the
toil et was invented. I l ike Nietsche's
definition-that
much-misunderstood
European-he said,
"In architectural
works,
man's
pride,
man's
triumph
over
gravitation, man's
wil l to
power
assume visibl e
form.
Architecture is
a veritabl e
oratory of power
made
by form. "
Now
myposition
in al l thisis
obviousl y
not as
sol ipsistic,
not as
directl y
in-
tuitional as al l that sounds. T o
get
back to
earth,
what do we do next?
If
we
don't
hang
on to
any of
these crutches. I'm a traditional ist. I bel ieve in
history.
I mean
by
tradition the
carrying out,
in
freedom,
the
devel opment
of
a certain basic
approach
to architecturewhich we
find upon beginning
our
work here. I do not bel ieve in
perpetual
revol ution in architecture. I do not
strive
for original ity.
As Miesoncetol d
me, "Phil ip,
it is much betterto be
good
than to be
original . "
I bel ievethat. Wehave
very fortunatel y
thework
of
our
spiritual fathers
to buil d on. Wehate
them, of course,
asal l
spiritual
sonshateal l
spiritual fathers,
but wecan't
ignorethem,
norcan we
deny
their
greatness.
T he
men, of course,
that I
refer
to: Wal ter
Gropius,
Le Corbusier
and Mies van der Rohe. Frank
Ll oyd Wright
I shoul d incl ude-the
greatest
architect
of
thenineteenth
century.
Isn't it
wonderful
to have behind us the
tradition,
the work that those men have done? Can
you imagine being
al ive at
a more
wonderful
time?Never in
history
was thetradition so
cl earl y demarked,
never were the
great
men so
great,
never coul d we l earn so much
from
them
and
go
our own
way,
without
feel ing
constricted
by any styl e,
and
knowing that
what we do is
going
to be the architecture
of
the
future,
and not be
afraid
that
we wander into some l ittl e
bypath,
l ike
today's
romanticists where
nothing
can
possibl y
evol ve. In that sense I am a traditional ist.