born July 8, 1906, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
died January 25, 2005, New Canaan, Conn.
U.S. architect and critic.
He studied philosophy and architecture at Harvard University. As coauthor of The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 (1932) and director of the architecture department (193234, 194654) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, he did much to familiarize Americans with modern European architecture. He gained fame with his own Glass House (1949), which struck a balance between the influence of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (later his collaborator on the Seagram Building ) and Classical allusion. His style took a striking turn with the AT&T headquarters, New York (1984), a controversial postmodernist landmark. In 1979 Johnson became the first recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.