Originally built for the 1964-1965 World's Fair, this Philip-Johnson-designed building now houses both the New York City Ballet and the New York City Opera.

David H. Koch Theater (Lincoln Center)

The Bobst Pixel Veil addresses dual design challenges: the creation of a secure yet visually porous membrane that is aesthetically compatible with the atrium designed by Philip Johnson in 1968. 

The Pixel Veil consists of laser-cut aluminum panels and vertical supports painted to match the existing bronze handrail. Each laser-cut panel is inscribed with a perforated pattern - the Pixel Matrix - composed using an underlying 4” grid whose spacing aligns with the vertical stanchions of the original railings while also complying with ADA building codes. 

Responding to the surrounding context, modular perforations gradually dissolve along the atrium perimeter from south to north, becoming visually more open towards the stacks and park. At the top level, the perforated veil terminates in a glass clerestory. The Pixel Matrix builds on the affinity between the original building and the language of digital information - both rely on the logic of the square matrix. Pixel Matrix references the building’s underlying square grid that Johnson expressed in the square coffered ceiling and concentric square reading lights, as well as the language of digital information that encrypts data through bar codes composed of square modules.

Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, NYU

These three condominium towers were major buildings in Donald Trump's redevelopment plan for "Trump Place," at the site of a former rail-yard. Trump Place had been a $3 billion, 75-acre project with plans for 5,700 apartments, 140,000sf of retail space and a 21.5 acre park to be completed by 2012 between 59th and 72nd streets.

Trump Place

 A 2008&ndash;10 addition, designed by Caples Jefferson Architects with Lee/Timchula Architects, added a reception hall. A transparent circular pavilion, it is said to be "especially dramatic at twilight, when the sunset-colored, invert dome appears to hover and flow in the dark." 

The project adds management offices, a 75-person cabaret, and a 540-person reception center to the existing theatre, itself a conversion of the Philip Johnson Theaterama of the 1960 World`s Fair. The curving form of the cabaret and the cylindrical structure of the reception center complement the circular geometry of the original round building and the 1991 tower additions. The transparent curtain wall, curving sunscreens, and spherical acoustical ceiling result in a dramatic point of entry to the world of the performance and to view of the phantasmagoric remains of old Fair dreams.

Queens Theatre

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                Sara Caples of Caples Jefferson talks about renovating the small round Theaterama of the original New York State World's Fair and adding new spaces including a 'party room for the Borough' to it.   
                                            
                                        

Boston Public Library: Johnson Addition

Keith Morgan, Professor of the History of Architecture, discusses Philip Johnson's addition to the Boston Public Library. 

 The iconic New York State Pavilion is one of the structures remaining in Flushing Meadows Corona Park from the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. Designed by esteemed architect Phillip Johnson, it consisted of the Tent of Tomorrow, the Theaterama, and the Astro-View Towers. Commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller, it was the tallest structure at the fair at 226 feet to the top of the towers. The Tent of Tomorrow bicycle wheel roof was supported by sixteen 100-foot tall concrete columns. The world`s largest map of New York State adorned the terrazzo floor. After the fair, in addition to hosting various musical acts in the late 1960`s, a roller skating concession operated in the mid-1970`s. Since then, the structure went unused and virtually ignored by New York City and fell into disrepair. Since 2009, the New York State Pavilion Paint Project has been repainting the mezzanine and caring for the building. The Paint Project and NYC Parks held successful sneak peek open gate events which drew thousands of people in support of saving the building. Much awareness has been raised with the help of additional organizations and the Queens Borough President has obtained funding to begin restoration of the towers. 

  Mitch Silverstein, Mitch Silverstein,  New York State Pavilion Paint Project

 Mitch Silverstein,  New York State Pavilion Paint Project

New York State Pavilion

The Four Seasons Restaurant came about when Bronfman hired Joseph Baum Restaurant Associates to make a restaurant to add value to the building. He decided to highlight American cuisine. Mimi Sheraton was on the research and testing team for the menu. The restaurant cost $4.5 million to open. It should be compared to the Guggenheim Museum which cost $3 million and was built at roughly the same time. It was the first restaurant to offer meals that changed with the seasons and was famous for its power lunches &ndash; JFK`s 45th Birthday dinner was held there. More recently there was a new renovation by Annabelle Seldorf in 2018.

Four Seasons Restaurant

 Belmont Freeman discusses the restaurant renovation of the Four Seasons Restaurants in the Phillip Johnson Seagram Building. 

Four clocks are set in three vertical faces of an oblique trianguloid form on a trianguloid base. Inscription on the front of base at right: "TIME SCULPTURE AT LINCOLN CENTER / BY PHILIP JOHNSON 1998 / GIFT OF YAFFE &amp; GEDALIO GRINBERG" Inscription on each clock face: "MOVADO"

Time Sculpture at Lincoln Center

Penn Central Transportation Company v. New York City was a landmark decision which ruled that New York City could prohibit the construction of a 53- story office building above Grand Central Terminal because the tower would significantly alter the terminal's status as a historic landmark.“The Committee to Save Grand Central Station,” was organized by the Municipal Art Society and led by several notable New Yorkers, including former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and architect Philip Johnson.

Supreme Court Ruling to Preserve Grand Central Terminal Landmark Status

The Seagram Building is recognized as one of the world's great architectural masterpieces. &nbsp;Clad in 1500 tons of bronze, it was noted for the metal vertical columns affixed the the curtain wall to express structure. Window shades operated in only 3 positions. Its plaza caused the NY City Zoning ordinance to be changed in 1961 to allow ten additional square feet of interior space for each square foot of street-level open space. With that provision, plazas soon appeared at office building sites throughout the city.&nbsp;Charles Bronfman had made his fortune in bootlegging and had a dubious reputation which he was anxious to redeem. So he bought the block on 53rd Street. He actually commissioned Charles Luckman to do a design. His daughter was travelling in Italy at the time; he sent it to her and she wrote back 'NO NO NO NO'. She took on the role of hiring the architect. She ended up hiring Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, then Architecture Curator at the new Museum of Modern Art. The building's elegant simplicity juxtaposed against its constructional rigor embodies Mies van der Rohe's famed dictum "less is more" and personifies modern architecture.

Seagram Building

 Barry Bergdoll, Phillip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA speaks on how the interaction between the Seagram Building, Lever House, and Tennis and Racquet Club activates the urban environment at 53rd Street and Park Avenue. 

 Architectural historian Carol Krinsky talks about the Seagram Building. 

 Phyllis Lambert discusses the Seagrams Building and its Plaza and its effect on New York City. 

 When Donald Trump bought the Old Headquarters for Gulf and Western, he wanted to transform the original 45 story office building into a hotel and apartment building. This required his architects, Philip Johnson and Costysis Kandilis to add an additional 7 floors (for a total of 52) and reclad the original beige stone and glass building with black glass. At the base Trump placed a stainless steel globe which was purported to be inspired by the Unisphere at the former world's fair in Queens. 

Trump International Hotel & Towers 

This hall, the home of the New York Philharmonic, has been infamous for its less-than-fantastic acoustics since it opened in 1962. The initial interior plan was designed by the noted acoustics firm Bolt, Beranek and Newman, but when Lincoln Center caved to the demands of newspaper critics and substantially increased the number of seats in the hall, it invalidated much of the work the firm had done and dramatically altered the acoustic profile of the hall--negatively in the minds of most listeners. Since the hall's opening several renovations have been done to improve its acoustics, including one in the 1970s lead by the noted architect Philip Johnson and another by the architect Norman Foster that is slated to begin sometime in the next few years.

Avery Fisher Hall

 After removing all traces of Philip Johnson`s original interior, the gutted shell is resurfaced with thin liners of varying materials that sometimes lift away to become structural, spatial, and functional elements. While the Seagram Building is considered to be the quintessential modernist glass tower, the restaurant is lodged in its stone base and is without glass, view or connection with the street. This irony prompted a series of alternate responses to the relation between glass and vision. A plasma monitor at the entry, back-to-back with a video camera to the street, produces a virtual transparency. Like a remnant of past construction, a 50-foot long sheet of lenticular glass is propped against an interior wall to support 24 seated diners. It sheaths artifacts on display and teases a direct view of them. The ritual of making an entrance is split into two events. A sensor above the revolving door triggers a video snapshot with the entry of every new patron and his or her image is added to a continuously changing video display over the bar. At the same time, entry into the main space one-half level below the street is made theatrical: a glass stairway of unusually gradual proportions prolongs the descent and deposits each patron into the center of the dining room. 

Brasserie

Designed the original interior, which was gutted in 1997

in the arcade at the Subway entrance to the the Federal Reserve Bank.

Between NY State Theatre and the Metropolitan Opera House in Josie Robertson Plaza

Thanks-Giving Square

Wells Fargo Tower

Philip Cortelyou Johnson was an influential American architect. In 1930, he founded the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and later (1978), as a trustee, he was awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the first Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 1979. He was a student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Catherine Cuellar discusses Thanks-Giving Square, a park created by many architects to give thanks.

Philip Johnson

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ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHS

PLAYLISTS CURATED by Philip Johnson