© Richard Barnes

Philip Johnson: A Complicated, Reprehensible History

由专筑网李韧，杨帆编译

本文最初发表于“Common Edge”杂志，标题为“菲利普·约翰逊的新传记”。

菲利普·约翰逊的生活漫长而非凡，他是一位建筑师、博物馆策展人、时尚人员、潮流制造人，甚至是一位文化代表。Mark Lamster是《Dallas Morning News》的建筑评论员，同时也是哈佛Loeb奖学金获得者，他书写了一部名为《Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century: The Man in the Glass House》的传记。两周之前，我和Lamster就这部关于菲利普·约翰逊的传记进行了沟通。

This interview was originally published on Common Edge as "Mark Lamster on His New Biography of Philip Johnson."
Philip Johnson lived a long and extraordinarily eventful life. He was an architect, a museum curator, a tastemaker, a kingmaker, a schemer, an exceptionally vivid cultural presence. Mark Lamster, architecture critic of the Dallas Morning News and Harvard Loeb Fellowship recipient, has now written a thoroughly engaging biography of him entitled, Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century: The Man in the Glass House. I talked to Lamster two weeks ago about the book and the bundle of contradictions that was Philip Johnson.


Bernard Duperrin

Martin C Pedersen（以下简称为MCP）：我一直对约翰逊这个人物非常感兴趣，我看过他的第一部传记，因此十分期待阅读你的文章，事实证明它也并没有让人失望，能不能阐述一下你的构思起源。

Mark Lamster（以下简称为ML）：一开始我拒绝做这件事。后来我和经纪人讨论了一下，接下来该写些一本关于什么内容的书，有人建议写菲利普·约翰逊的传记，他已经去世，而在他死后还没有相关的传记出版。他是一个重要的文化人物，我有些犹豫，然而我还是拒绝了，我不知道这个念头会在我的脑海里存在多久。

MCP：情况总是这样。

ML：是的。在那次会面之后我就觉得我不会做这件事，但我仍然告诉他们我会考虑。之后我思考得越多，我就越来越发现，这个人物是我的首选题材，这不只是关乎一个人，他活了98岁，涉及到诸多问题，这本书可以说是关乎整个美国历史的书。从他的生活故事中可以反映出来许多消极或积极的美国故事。

他就是这样一个关乎矛盾的人，同时他也十分有趣与多才，并且充满活力与想法。这并非沉重的考研，而是通过这个人来讲述关于建筑意味着什么的一种方式。

MCP：那么你有阅读过Franz Schulze的约翰逊传记吗？

ML：有的。这是一本很好的书，同时他也是一位优秀的建筑历史学家。但是约翰逊并不喜欢这本书，其中原因太多了。

Martin C Pedersen: I have always been perversely interested in Johnson as a historical figure. I had read and enjoyed the first biography of him. So I was looking forward to reading this. And it didn’t disappoint. Tell me the genesis of your book.
Mark Lamster: Initially I had rejected the whole idea of doing it. I was coming off another book and sitting with my agent, discussing what sort of book I should write next. Someone suggested a biography of Philip Johnson. He’d been dead for a few years and there hadn’t been a posthumous biography. He was a major cultural figure. And it was right in my swing zone. But I said no. I didn’t want Johnson floating around in my head for the three years that it would take. Having no idea that it would, in fact, take three times that long.

MCP: As is always the case.
ML: Right. I walked out of that meeting convinced that I wasn’t going to do it. But I told them that I’d think about it. And the more I did, the more I became convinced that Johnson was exactly the person I needed to write about. Because it could be a book about so much more than just one person. He lived for 98 years and was stirring up trouble for all of it, so it could be a book about the entire American century. You could see so much of the American story mirrored in his life, both positive and negative.
He was this endless series of contradictions and, as a result, a fun person to write about: entertaining, full of life, energy, opinions. And instead of it being a ponderous examination of what architecture means, this was a way to tell my story about what architecture means through this fascinating person.

MCP: Had you read the previous Johnson biography by Franz Schulze?
ML: Yes. It’s a fine book and he’s an excellent architectural historian. But Johnson hated that book, for a variety of reasons.


Courtesy of American Seating .jpg

MCP：我认为主要的原因是Schulze在约翰逊的“纳粹时代”花费了太多笔墨。

ML：他不喜欢的原因有很多，纳粹并非主要因素。我觉得他会认为其中包含一些个人主义的倾向，我听到许多关于此的批评，但是我并不赞同。因此我觉得约翰逊也不喜欢这些说法，因为他会认为其中建筑部分的描述不够详尽。

约翰逊有一些明确的特征，例如幽默、机智，但是在Schulze的书中，你不会有这种感觉，因为在很大程度上这来源于艺术历史学家的策略。我会从记者的角度来看待问题，因此我很注重他个人特征的塑造，希望读者在传记中也能感同身受。

MCP：Schulze的传记确实打下了许多“纳粹”时代的烙印，但是你的书却更加深奥一些。

ML：我有着更多的实录。从他们的身上你可以了解到约翰逊不仅仅是纳粹的同情者，甚至还是纳粹国家的积极人员。

MCP：我在阅读你的书时能从中得出这个结论。

ML：他在德国最高部门的情报机构工作。在漫长的时间中，他都跟德国最高层的人物打交道，递送他们需要的资料。在联邦调查局的询问下他也承认了这一点。而关于他是否违法，这无法一概而论。

参与法西斯的所有同伴都被逮捕，但是约翰逊却没有，因为他比较有钱，有权势的朋友保护了他，同时德国政府也不需要付钱给他而进行宣传活动。违法的并不是宣传，因为这仍然属于言论自由的范围，真正违反法律的是接受外国政府的金钱。但是约翰逊不需要钱，因此他并没有从纳粹政府获益。实际上，他都是自己花钱来买东西，他就像他们梦寐以求的经纪人。这使政府可以转而支持其他特工或间谍的工作，因为约翰逊完全可以负担得起自己的生活。

MCP: I thought he hated it largely because Schulze did deal at great length with Johnson’s “Nazi years.”
ML: There were a bunch of reasons why he hated it. I don’t think the Nazi thing was the primary reason. I think he felt like there was too much sex in it, with a homophobic slant to it. I’ve heard that criticism about it, but I don’t agree with it. I also feel like Johnson didn’t like it because he didn’t feel the architecture was covered enough.
Johnson has a certain voice. It’s antic, witty, cutting, and you don’t necessarily feel that so much in the Schulze book because it’s very much an art historian’s approach. I had a bit more of a journalist’s edge. I was very concerned about capturing his voice. I wanted you to be able to feel him in the book.

MCP: The Schulze biography does delve into Johnson’s so-called “Nazi flirtation,” but your book goes deeper and darker.
ML: I was able to get more records. And what you learn from them is that Johnson was not just a Nazi “sympathizer,” he was essentially an active agent of the Nazi state.

MCP: That’s certainly the conclusion that I drew in reading your book.
ML: He was operating with figures at the very top of the German state. Intelligence agencies. The Gestapo. He met with them, over long periods of time. He had material that they wanted. He visited them. He admitted to it under FBI questioning. It’s pretty much no question as to what he was doing. Whether he was violating the law is a bit of a different question.
Almost all of his fellow travelers and colleagues in fascist circles were arrested and put on trial. Johnson wasn’t. And the reason was that he was wealthy. He was protected by powerful friends. But really what protected him was, he had enough money that the German government didn’t need to pay him to propagandize on their behalf. Where you start violating the sedition laws is not when you start to propagandize, because that’s free speech; it’s when you start accepting money from a foreign government to do so, without registering the fact. That is illegal. But because Johnson didn’t need money, he never took any from the Nazi state. In fact, he was paying for stuff out of his own pocket. He was like their dream agent. They had to support those other agents and “spies,” but here’s Johnson, this independently wealthy figure, who can do it on his own and support others.


The Beck House in Dallas. Via Common Edge

MCP：让人惊讶的是，约翰逊逐渐跨越了这一层面。请谈谈他是如何改造自己，将自己从潜在的“纳粹间谍”转为美国建筑学院的院长呢？这听起来有些难以置信。

ML：是的，他有许多朋友，他十分关心他们。在战争之后，人们都不想谈论过去，都只想向前看。

约翰逊有犹太朋友，因此他设计了犹太教堂，有些人了解他的过去，有些人则不了解，但是许多人都选择原谅他。他做的许多行为都令人感到头疼，比如他在以色列设计了核研究所，因此，这个反犹太分子，甚至是潜在的“纳粹间谍”，却在几年之后促进了犹太国家的发展。

MCP：跨过他的纳粹年月，我们来谈一下约翰逊和纽约市现代艺术博物馆的关系，我没有意识到约翰逊也许是20世纪最具影响力的博物馆馆长之一。他们著名的产品设计方式在很大程度上来源于约翰逊的创新策略。

ML：这起始于纽约现代艺术博物馆建筑系的成立，这也是他大学毕业之后的第一份工作。他在整个大学生涯中花费了很长的时间，他不确定在这一生中他需要做什么，甚至还有一些心理问题。最后，他希望成为建筑历史学家和策划人，他投靠了Alfred Barr，他们组成了建筑部，这是一个全新的概念。后来他们开始了国际风格纪念展览，向人们介绍欧洲现代主义历史。这逐渐也成为了一种风格，将现代主义从社会特征中脱离出来。这无疑十分成功，两年后他从这次成功走向了更大的成功，在1934年举办了机器艺术展览，不过现在已经鲜为人知了。

MCP: What’s amazing is, Johnson somehow moves past that. Talk about his ability to completely reinvent himself, from probable Nazi spy to the dean of American architecture. It’s just mind-boggling.
ML: It is. But he had powerful friends. He had friends who always cared about him. He was smart and opportunistic. And in the post-war years, people didn’t really want to talk about that past. They wanted to move on.
Johnson had Jewish friends, he had Jewish clients. He designed a synagogue. Some people knew about his past, some people didn’t know, but people were willing to forgive him. There were, of course, some people who never forgave him. But there were other things that he did that to me were even more problematic. What’s amazing to me is: he ends up designing a nuclear research facility in Israel. So basically this man—a virulent anti-Semite and a probable Nazi agent— just a few years later helped the Jewish State develop the bomb.

MCP: Like Johnson, let’s move past his Nazi years and talk about his association with MoMA. I didn’t realize the extent to which Johnson is perhaps one of the most influential museum curators in the 20th century. Their famous approach to product design was very much a Johnson innovation.
ML: It begins with the founding of the architecture department at the Museum of Modern Art. It’s his first job out of college. It took him a long time to get through college. He was not sure what he wanted to do with his life. He had some mental health issues. And finally, he figures out that he wants it to be architectural history and curating. He attaches himself to Alfred Barr. And they form this department of architecture, which is something new. And they start off with this monumental show on the International Style, which introduces European modernism to America. It very much makes a case for it as a style, stripping modernism of its social prerogatives. That was a success and he moves from that two years later to an even bigger success. Lesser known now, it’s the Machine Art show of 1934.


The Glass House. Courtesy of Pixabay

MCP：数十年来，这个展览都是MoMA产品的前兆。

ML：这次展览首次告诉美国公众关于工业设计、设计对象等问题都值得博物馆的关注。他展示了玻璃碗、烧杯、弹簧、牙医椅、华夫铁等物品，这些都展示在白色底座之上。另外，约翰逊还进行展览设计。这个概念来源于Mies van der Rohe和Lilly Reich，约翰逊运用了他们的策略，并且将这些概念放置到美国的博物馆之中。在这里曾经也有过设计展览，但是并不相似。“The New Yorker”也有卡通片，这是一大问题，今天我们仍然体验着以艺术为对象的概念，我之前在纽约Cooper Hewitt的永久展馆第一展厅就观看了1934年展览盛况。

MCP：那么你如何评价他的建筑？它其实很难一概而论，你是从哪落脚的呢？

ML：这也是我觉得很困难的原因，因为一开始我认为大部分的建筑都很糟糕，就算是优秀的设计，我也并不感兴趣。但到后来慢慢地了解他的作品，我开始发现其中精彩的部分，这是密斯或是路易斯·康吗？事实并非如此，但是还有谁能达到这样的标准？另外同样还有一些优秀的公共作品，以及一些糟糕的作品。因此你需要构思不同的项目，这十分充满趣味，会给人们带来新鲜感，另一方面，这也是建筑师传记书写起来比较困难的一部分，建筑师设计了太多的项目，那么你便有许多项目需要逐一审查。

MCP：这是大多数传记会存在的问题，它们都有些相似，因为最终你会感受到日常生活的点滴。就整体结构而言，你的书描述得很有趣，每个章节都有争论。因此它不会让读者嚼之无物。谈谈这本书的框架结构吧。

ML：这很难讲，因为约翰逊的生活层面很复杂。既有公共生活，也有私人生活，同时还有建筑与艺术生活，各个方面同时进行，但是发展的速度与方向各不一样。然后便会形成不同的建筑项目，这些项目都需要花费较长的时间。那么在时间轴上应该怎么表达呢？我想通过这些内容来感动读者，说实话这本书非常具有戏剧性，我相信读者阅读的时候会很愉快。

MCP: That show is such a precursor for almost everything MoMA does with products, for decades.  
ML: This is the show that for the first time told the American public that industrial design, or designed objects, were worthy of museum attention. He’s showing glass bowls and beakers, springs, a dentist chair, a waffle iron, and they’re all displayed on white pedestals. Johnson did the exhibition design. But it was quite consciously developed out of an aesthetic developed by Mies van der Rohe and, especially, Lilly Reich. Johnson takes their approach and transports it into the American museum. There had been design shows before but nothing quite like this. There were cartoons in The New Yorker. It was a big deal. And today we’re still experiencing this idea of object-as-art. I was just in New York, at the Cooper Hewitt and the first room of the permanent collection there is displayed just like that 1934 show.

MCP: How do you assess his architecture? It’s difficult to parse because it’s so all over the place. Where do you finally come down as a critic?
ML: It was actually one of the reasons why I started out thinking that I could never write this book. Because my initial perception was that most of the architecture was terrible. And even when it wasn’t terrible, it was representative of a certain kind of design that wasn’t something I was interested in. It was very much design for the 1%. But the more time I got to spend looking at his work, the more I realized that there was actually some wonderful, beautiful, brilliant work there. Is it Mies or Lou Kahn? No, but who else meets that bar? There is some truly great work. Public work, too. And some catastrophically terrible work. So you just have to go through the individual projects and look at them. That was part of the fun, trying to bring fresh eyes to some of this work that people either don’t know about or had dismissed. Or, conversely, had celebrated, when they shouldn’t. On the other hand, one of the dangers of writing the biography of an architect is, you’ve got hundreds of projects to review. And you don’t want it to turn into: He built this, then he built that, and that.

MCP: That’s the problem with most biographies. They get stuck in the weeds, and you end up finding out what they ate for dinner, on a Tuesday, in October of 1929. Your book was well plotted, in terms of structure. Each chapter had an argument. So it didn’t get bogged down in exposition. Talk about how you structured the book.
ML: It was very difficult to structure it because Johnson led all these different lives. He had a public life. He had a private life. He had an architectural life. He had a life in the arts. And these are all going on simultaneously. But they’re all moving at different velocities. Then you get major architectural projects, which take a long time to complete. So where in the timeline do you write about them? I was very conscious of wanting to move the reader through it, for it to be a dramatic, enjoyable read, in the same way, that being around Johnson could be enjoyable.


© Flickr user Amir Nejad


© David Shankbone


© Flickr user Paul N.


An edition of Time Magazine featuring Philip Johnson


New York State Pavilion


Cross Section of the Crystal Cathedral