Spry and readable, this first major Johnson biography delivers the goods on the puckish 87-year-old godfather of American architecture. Although Johnson granted architectural historian Schulze (Mies van der Rohe, not reviewed) extensive interviews, he demanded no editorial control over the project. Consequently, the portrait that emerges is fresh, candid, and relatively free of flattery. Schulze tells how Johnson, born to a wealthy Ohio family, learned early how to ply privilege into power (a gift of stock from his father made him a millionaire by the time he graduated Harvard). Johnson's ``inglorious detour''—his 1930s travels to Germany and dabblings in fascist and Nazi ideologies—are described in detail for the first time. Back stateside, an unrepentant Johnson is shown supporting Father Charles E. Coughlin, as well as forging and deepening influential bonds with Museum of Modern Art director Alfred Barr, author Henry-Russell Hitchcock, and architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It wasn't until 1945, though, that the still- unlicensed Johnson opened his architectural practice. A quick tour of his eclectic output starts with Johnson's own New Canaan, Conn., home, the Glass House of 194849, a homage to Mies van der Rohe, with whom he would later co-design New York's influential Seagram Building. Schulze analyzes Johnson's schemes for Houston's Pennzoil Plaza, California evangelist Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral, and New York's Chippendale-topped AT&T headquarters as products of brilliantly dandyish whim and historical pastiche. A master at self-positioning, Johnson is seen in the 1970s and 1980s gravitating away from modernism to a new generation of postmodernists and deconstructivists—notably, Michael Graves, Robert A.M. Stern, Frank Gehry, and Peter Eisenman. Throughout, Schulze pays ample attention to the architect's personal life, including his relentless social hobnobbing and extended romantic relationships with a series of distinctive men, such as artist David Grainger Whitney. An expansive view of Johnson's prickly intellect, ambition, and shifting aesthetic core. (125 photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 17, 1994
ISBN: 0-394-57204-1
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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