Philip Johnson. Photo credit: Greg Gorman
190 South LaSalle. Photo credit: Alan Brunettin
A champion of modern architecture early in his career, Philip Johnson was profoundly influenced by, and also collaborated with, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
After the 1950s, Johnson left Mies’ minimalist principles of modernism behind in favor of postmodernism, a movement that defiantly reintroduced some of the ornament and detail modernism had rejected — albeit with its own, often cheeky, twists and references.
In Chicago, Johnson’s 40-story building at 190 South LaSalle Street is an example of postmodernism. The building's gabled roof pays homage to the demolished Masonic Temple Building by John Wellborn Root.
