The Man in the Glass House, Mark Lamster
The Man in the Glass House, Mark Lamster
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The Man in the Glass House
Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century

Author: Mark Lamster

Narrator: Mark Bramhall

Unabridged: 17 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/25/2019

Synopsis

When Philip Johnson died in 2005 at the age of ninety-eight, he was still one of the most recognizable—and influential—figures on the American cultural landscape. The first recipient of the Pritzker Prize and MoMA’s founding architectural curator, Johnson made his mark as one of America’s leading architects with his famous Glass House in New Caanan, Connecticut, and his controversial AT&T Building in New York City, among many others in nearly every city in the country—but his most natural role was as a consummate power broker and shaper of public opinion.Johnson introduced European modernism—the sleek, glass-and-steel architecture that now dominates our cities—to America, and mentored generations of architects, designers, and artists to follow. He defined the era of “starchitecture” with its flamboyant buildings and celebrity designers who esteemed aesthetics and style above all other concerns. But Johnson was also a man of deep paradoxes: he was a Nazi sympathizer, a designer of synagogues, an enfant terrible into his old age, a populist, and a snob. His clients ranged from the Rockefellers to televangelists to Donald Trump.Award-winning architectural critic and biographer Mark Lamster’s The Man in the Glass House lifts the veil on Johnson’s controversial and endlessly contradictory life to tell the story of a charming yet deeply flawed man. A roller-coaster tale of the perils of wealth, privilege, and ambition, this book probes the dynamics of American culture that made him so powerful and tells the story of the built environment in modern America.

About Mark Lamster

Mark Lamster is the architecture critic of the Dallas Morning News and a professor in the architecture school at the University of Texas at Arlington. In 2017, he was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. A native of New York City, he now lives with his family in Dallas.

About Mark Bramhall

Mark Bramhall has won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration, more than thirty AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has repeatedly been named by AudioFile magazine and Publishers Weekly among their “Best Voices of the Year.” He is also an award-winning actor whose acting credits include off-Broadway, regional, and many Los Angeles venues as well as television, animation, and feature films. He has taught and directed at the American Academy of Dramatic Art.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jill

Author Mark Lamster's biography of architect Philip Johnson, "The Man in the Glass House", is a masterful examination of a man who, in many ways, was the embodiment of his class and time. An anti-Semite - he was an open admirer of Hitler and Nazi Germany in the 1930's - he tried to make amends for h......more

Goodreads review by Lee

I usually won't stick with a 450-page book on a somewhat frivolous topic: a rich, eccentric architect, but this was excellent. In many ways, Johnson was more of a stylist than an architect, by strict definition and by temperament. It is ironic because he had no real artistic talent, yet made interes......more

Goodreads review by Russell

A good bit of my interest in Philip Johnson comes from his work in Fort Worth: the Amon Carter Museum and the Fort Worth Water Gardens. Both were iconic when they debuted, the Amon Carter notable for establishing the museum district, featuring an inviting grassy plain in front of the somewhat forbid......more

Goodreads review by John

When I was in high school I pored over old architecture and Life magazines given to me by an uncle who had finished reading them. The clean, modernistic styles depicted, devoid of ornamentation appealed my sense of aesthetics and later my interests in print graphics and typography. Was I aware of Jo......more

Quotes

“In Mark Lamster’s nuanced telling, Johnson…becomes a symbol of America itself. This is biography as history, and it is a magnificent piece of work.” David L. Ulin, author of Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles

“A biography with attitude, a bullet train through the shifting landscapes of twentieth-century America, and a sheer pleasure to read.” Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do

“A biography that is as much literary as critical achievement. Required reading for anyone hoping to make sense of the American century, for Johnson was its house architect.” Christopher Hawthorne, chief design officer for the city of Los Angeles and former architecture critic of the Los Angeles Times

“Johnson was a fascinating and disturbing figure; Lamster’s biography, impressively and honestly, displays him with his full complexity.” Ruth Franklin,author of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life

“Smoothly written and fair-minded…[A] searching and thorough overview of Johnson’s engrossing life.” Wall Street Journal

“[A] brisk, clear-eyed new biography.” New Yorker

“The perfect addition to the aesthete’s bookshelf…Essential” Toronto Globe and Mail

“A vivid, thoughtful, illuminating, disturbing, and definitive chronicle of one of twentieth-century architecture’s most celebrated and powerful figures.” Kurt Andersen, author and host of Studio 360

“Lamster’s mesmerizing, authoritative, and often-astonishing study grapples with Johnson’s legacy in all its ambiguity…[A] masterful achievement.” Booklist (starred review)

“A fresh look at [Johnson’s] less-than-savory aspects, Lamster portrays a diffident genius for whom being boring was the greatest crime.” Kirkus (starred review)

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