Woo-hoo! The Man in the Glass House has been selected as a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. This is one of the largest prizes in publishing, so a tremendous honor. It’s also nice to be on the shortlist with my friend Christopher Bonanos, author of Flash, the terrific new biography of the photographer Weegee.
Here’s the New York Times Book Review on The Man in the Glass House, written by Paul Goldberger (who, yes, does appear in the book). It begins:
You want to begin a review of “The Man in the Glass House,” Mark Lamster’s stimulating and lively new biography of Philip Johnson, by saying something about architecture. But the reality of Johnson — one of the most compelling architects who has ever lived, which is not the same as being one of the best architects — is that the most interesting thing about him was not the buildings he designed. The qualities that make him, and this book, fascinating are his nimble intelligence, his restlessness, his energy, his anxieties, his ambitions and his passions, all of which were channeled into the making of a few pieces of architecture that will stand the test of time, and many others that will not.
You can find the rest here.
I spent nine years working on my biography of Philip Johnson, so I’m not gonna lie, all of the positive reviews have been tremendously gratifying. To have it compared to the Power Broker, the book that made me want to write about architecture, is about as good as it can get. A sampler:
“In ‘The Man in the Glass House,’ Mark Lamster’s brisk, clear-eyed new biography of Johnson, we are asked to contemplate why the impresario of twentieth-century architecture descended into such a morass of far-right politics—and how, given the depths to which he fell, he managed to clamber his way not just out of it, but to the top.”
—The New Yorker
“A judicious, jargon-free biography that’s unafraid to name Johnson’s virtues and vices, in architecture and in life.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“To say this is the biography Johnson deserves is no compliment to him. Gracefully and unflinchingly, Lamster depicts the long-lived American modernist poster boy as a man of great strengths inseparable from his even greater flaws — his hunger for self-promotion; his sympathy for the Nazis, notwithstanding his homosexuality, his flexibility with clients, and rigidity in style. Just as importantly, Lamster uses him to point up the amorality of the modernists — social visionaries with massive blind spots, indebted to power and money no matter who had it.”
—New York Magazine
“A biography that not only raises the bar for writing with nuance about difficult historical figures, but also offers an eye-opening glimpse into architecture’s transformation from a staid and upwardly mobile white-collar profession to the deeply unequal and star-studded spectacle it is today. Glass House tackles the myths and enigmas of Johnson’s life, and of a supposedly egalitarian architectural culture, in one fell swoop.”
—The Nation
“[Lamster] imagined his project as analogous to The Power Broker, Robert Caro’s life of the New York civic official Robert Moses…Remarkably, The Man in the Glass House lives up to that comparison. It reads like a novel, and the story manages to capture huge swaths of 20th-century life.”
—The Toronto Globe and Mail
“‘I can’t stand truth. It gets so boring, you know, like social responsibility,’ Johnson states in an unattributed quote. Lamster’s biographical subject never fully recovers from his own declaration in this thoroughly researched and highly readable volume that vividly captures the essence of a complex and disturbing character.”
—Architectural Record
“Lamster is clear-eyed about [Johnson’s] legacy and justly critical. His readable, meticulously researched book spans the history of modernism in the United States, illuminating Johnson’s part in many of its successes – and its failures.”
–Apollo
“Mark Lamster’s dazzling portrait of Philip Johnson narrates the rise and fall of every architectural movement of the 20th century refracted through one man’s ambition, while providing an analysis, and an indictment, of how power in America is gained, wielded, and squandered. In The Man in the Glass House, Lamster takes a protagonist who is compromised in every possible way–morally, politically, and aesthetically–places him squarely at the intersection of American commerce and culture, and dares us to watch what happens.”
—Fast Company
“Lamster has a journalist’s gift for the memorable phrase [that] makes his book enjoyable to read….It is Lamster’s willingness to explore the mechanics of constructing and managing an artistic persona that makes The Man in the Glass House such a worthwhile and rewarding inquiry into Johnson’s life and career.”
—Texas Architect
“In this smart, engaging biography, Mark Lamster depicts contradictory, influential “starchitect” Philip Johnson and his times in their full complexity.”
—Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“rich, authoritative, compulsively readable new biography….Lamster’s sentences can leap tall buildings, if not in a single bound (though the short sentences are leveling), then with an alloy of structure and purpose his subject could only have envied.”
—Bay Area Reporter
“Engrossing…a dynamic composite sketch, one that shifts throughout Johnson’s numerous (and ludicrous and troubling) ideological transformations. As Lamster reveals, Johnson’s power, a flak jacket of wealth and wit, saved him again and again.”
—Metropolis
“Lamster’s book is a gripping and fair-minded account of an architect who always placed himself at the centre and changed the face of the US — not always for the better.”
—Financial Times, best book of 2018
“Lamster’s book is one that doesn’t shy away from wondering, in 2018, how much we can truly separate the man from his art”
—Smithsonian Magazine, best book of 2018
“A surprising story of an incredible, if incorrigible, man who shaped the America we live in today”
—D Magazine
“More than just a memoir…this book is in fact a revelation.”
—Architect
“Exceptional…Mark Lamster’s new biography of Philip Johnson, ‘The Man in the Glass House’ is likely to remain THE reference work for years on the contradictory, jaded, insecure and driven designer, perhaps the most influential in modern American architecture and certainly one of the biggest to shape North Texas cityscapes – for good AND bad.”
—KERA’s Art & Seek
“The book is a valuable account of Philip Johnson’s life, but it also goes beyond being an individual’s biography, setting an example for the historical treatment of flawed geniuses.”
—Curbed
“Lamster’s deep dive into the life and career of Philip Johnson pays off in spades.”
—Architects’ Newspaper, best book of 2018
“The Man in the Glass House reads like an Ayn Rand plot rewritten by Henry James.It is as enjoyable and informative to read Lamster’s descriptions of the buildings he loves as it is of those he hates.”
—Harvard Magazine
“Lamster’s deep, deep research means these and other happenings in Johnson’s life are illuminated with facts and stories that humanize the myths, that make them real parts of a real life. That the stories of Johnson’s long yet busy life are told in a way that makes the book hard to put down surely doesn’t hurt….thoroughly and beautifully told.”
—Archidose
That is a good question, and you can read a bit more about it in an excerpt of The Man in the Glass House in New York Magazine. As an accompaniment, let me also suggest this wonderful story on the book and architectural criticism in Dallas by Peter Simek in D Magazine.
After nine years of work, The Man in the Glass House is finally an actual book between hard covers. With a beautiful jacket. The official publication date is November 6. We planned that figuring it would be a typical slow news day. Kidding! But I do hope the book will be something of an antidote to the current political madness, although I think it also helps to explain it, and the parallels to this moment in Johnson’s and American history are pretty stark. I will be doing a good bit of speaking over the next few months to talk about the book, and more generally architecture and criticism, and I would be thrilled for anyone who takes the time out of their schedule to join me. There are links below to forthcoming programs, including several in the immediate future in Dallas and New York.
November 5: Dallas
Interabang Books
(in conversation with DMN books editor Mike Merschel)
7:00pm
November 8: Ft. Worth
Texas Society of Architects
11:30am-12:30pm (book signing)
November 8: Dallas
The Wild Detectives
(in conversation with DMN features editor Tom Huang)
7:30-9:00pm
November 10: Dallas
Preservation Dallas at the Beck House
11:00am (members event)
November 13: Houston
Pennzoil Place
Sponsored by The Houston Chronicle, Houston Mod, Preservation Houston, and AIA Houston
6:00-9:00pm
November 15: Buffalo
Darwin Martin House
6:30-7:30pm
November 20: New York
School of Visual Arts, MA Design Research Program
6:30-8:00pm
November 24: Montreal
Canadian Centre of Architecture
(in conversation with Phyllis Lambert)
3:30-5:00pm
November 27: Dallas
Dallas Museum of Art, Arts & Letters Live
(in conversation with DMN art critic Rick Brettell)
7:30pm
December 8: Sarasota
Ringling Museum of Art, Asolo Theater
10:30am
January 7: New York
Center for Architecture
(in conversation with Karrie Jacobs)
January 10: Boston
Pinkcomma Gallery
Signing and reception
7:00pm
January 11: Hartford
Wadsworth Atheneum
(in conversation with DMN art critic Rick Brettell)
January 17: New York
The Museum of Modern Art
(in conversation with former chief architecture curator Barry Bergdoll)
January 24: Boston
Boston Public Library
(in conversation with architect Bill Rawn)
March 27: Chicago
Chicago Architecture Foundation
Some good news as the November 6 release date of The Man in the Glass House approaches: The book has hit the rare trifecta of starred reviews in all three publishing industry trade publications, namely Booklist, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly. The good parts:
Booklist: “Lamster’s mesmerizing, authoritative, and often-astonishing study grapples with Johnson’s legacy in all its ambiguity….[a] masterful achievement.”
Kirkus: “Offering a fresh look at his subject’s less-than-savory aspects, Lamster portrays a diffident genius for whom being boring was the greatest crime.”
PW: “Lamster outlines the complicated and contradictory life of architect Philip Johnson in this engrossing, exhaustively researched account of a brilliant opportunist who introduced modernism to America….This is an entertaining and in-depth look at one of architecture’s most complex and influential characters.”
Hey look it’s galleys! If you’re a member of the press or would like to write about The Man in the Glass House, let me know. But here’s what some very bright people are already saying about it:
“I once considered writing a novel based on the life of Philip Johnson. Mark Lamster’s excellent biography reminds me why: The Man In the Glass House is a vivid, thoughtful, illuminating, disturbing and definitive chronicle of one of 20th century architecture’s most celebrated and powerful figures.“
– Kurt Andersen, author & host of NPR’s Studio 360
“Mark Lamster thoughtfully teases out the real history of this modernist icon, from his impressive sexual appetites and more-than-flirtation with fascism in Hitler’s Germany to his 1990s collaboration with Donald Trump. It’s clear that Johnson was a fascinating and disturbing figure; Lamster’s biography, impressively and honestly, displays him with his full complexity.”
– Ruth Franklin, author of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life
“More than a dozen years after his death, Philip Johnson remains a perplexing, polarizing, magnetic and frustrating figure: although he was far from our greatest architect, no one did more to shape our architectural culture. In this compelling biography, Mark Lamster deconstructs Johnson’s complex persona, evaluates his work and begins the process of establishing his place in history.”
– Paul Goldberger, Pulitzer Prize winning critic and author of Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry
“Philip Johnson led many lives – as curator, aspiring demagogue with a Third Reich fixation, modernist architect, winking post-modernist, and finally kingmaker in the profession – and Mark Lamster has masterfully woven them together in a biography that is as much literary as critical achievement. Required reading for anyone hoping to make sense of the American century, for Johnson was its house architect.”
– Christopher Hawthorne, Chief Design Officer for the city of Los Angeles and former architecture critic, Los Angeles Times
“The Man in the Glass House captures the essence of a prodigious, multivalent, enigmatic American talent with authority and aplomb. It’s a biography with attitude, a bullet train through the shifting landscapes of 20th century architecture, and a sheer pleasure to read.
– Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do and You May Also Like: Taste in An Age of Endless Choice
“Philip Johnson was as complicated and contradictory as the American century that created him and which he helped define. Modernist, reactionary, anti-Semite, populist, artist and commercial powerhouse, he lived, in some sense, to contradict himself. In Mark Lamster’s nuanced telling, Johnson becomes more than the man in the round glasses, or the avatar of modernism; he becomes a symbol of America itself. This is biography as history, and it is a magnificent piece of work.”
– David L. Ulin, author of Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles
It’s a book, or will be soon. The Man in the Glass House: Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century drops on November 6.
You can pre-order from the bookseller of your choice:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million
Indiebound
For more than three centuries, Deer Island has been the place where Boston has put the things it would rather not think about. It has been a concentration camp for Native Americans, a women’s prison, a fortress against invasion from the sea. When bodies are dumped into Boston’s waters, they wash up on Deer Island’s shores. It is also where the city’s excrement goes, the site of the Deer Island Wastewater Management Plant, a masterwork of infrastructural design that opened in 1995, after a federal court mandated the clean-up of Boston Harbor. On an average day, the Deer Island plant treats some 350 million gallons of sewage; in the event of a storm surge it can treat up to 1.3 billion gallons per day.
The plant is most recognizable for its twelve egg-shaped digesters, each 130 feet tall, which thicken sludge so that it can be converted into fertilizer. Contaminated water is purified over ten to fifteen days as it is fed through a series of “batteries,” or pools, where it is gradually aerated and cleansed before it is returned to Massachusetts Bay by a 9.5 mile, twenty-four-foot-wide, gravity-fed tunnel. Below the plant’s surface is a secret world of labyrinthine galleries, colorful machinery, and electric vehicles that looks like nothing so much as the lair of a James Bond villain. But nobody at Deer Island is trying to blow up the world. It is operated, instead, by a cadre of engineers and tradesman dedicated to keeping Boston’s water clean in times pleasant and severe.
During my fellowship year in Cambridge, I made a photographic project of documenting Deer Island, and those images were exhibited in a show, The Island that Nobody Knows, at Boston’s PinkComma Gallery. This month that show travels to the University of Texas at Arlington School of Architecture, where it will be on display from February 26 through the end of March.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Kalita Humphreys Theater is the single most neglected and mismanaged landmark in Dallas,and its state of disrepair is an ongoing civic travesty. In my most recent long-ish form piece, I write about how this has happened, and about the plan to finally do something about it. I hope you will read it, and join the conservancy fighting for to save this treasure for the city.
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