John M. Johansen

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John MacLane Johansen (born June 29, 1916 in New York City , New York - † October 26, 2012 in Brewster , Massachusetts ) was an American architect and member of the Harvard Five .

Life

Johansen's parents were painters. He attended Harvard University and learned the basics of modern architecture from Walter Gropius , the founder of the Bauhaus . In 1939 he graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Design with a master's degree in architecture.

After the Second World War he worked as a draftsman for Marcel Breuer , who emigrated to the United States in 1937 and opened his own architectural office in 1941. Johansen later worked as a research fellow for the National Housing Agency in Washington, DC . Then he worked for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in New York.

Finally, like his four colleagues Marcel Breuer, Philip Johnson , Landis Gores and Eliot Noyes , he settled in 1948 as a freelance architect in New Canaan (Connecticut) .

From 1955 to 1960 he was an adjunct professor at the Yale School of Architecture , which at the time was a center of architectural modernism in the USA. Since 1979 he was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters . In 1994 Johansen was elected a member ( NA ) of the National Academy of Design .

Johansen was married to the art teacher Ati Gropius Johansen , a daughter of Walter Gropius. He lived in Wellfleet, Massachusetts .

style

Johansen's designs emphasized function over form and focused on social, urban and anthropological conditions. He tried to avoid overpowering megastructures . Initially, he sought to explore the “box”, which was inexpensive and easy to build, while being aesthetically coherent. These investigations led to the construction of Johansen House # 1 in 1950 , which was included in the “Built in the USA” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art . In 1955 a glass cube followed, the McNiff House. In some of his houses, Johansen used Palladian elements such as the grotto, the classic cross floor plan and the Palladian prototype of the central pavilion, for example in the Villa Ponte or the Warner House.

Some of his later buildings can be attributed to brutalism , such as the Mechanic Theater, which was demolished in 2014 . After its closure, the Mummers Theater (later Stage Center ) in Oklahoma City was also demolished in August 2014.

plant

US Embassy in Dublin
Morris A. Mechanic Theater in Baltimore

Buildings and drafts (incomplete)

Fonts

  • A Life in the Continuum of Modern Architecture. 1995.
  • Nanoarchitecture: a new species of architecture. Princeton Architectural Press, 2002.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John Johansen, 96, Last of 'Harvard Five' Architects, Is Dead
  2. ↑ The NHA consisted of three entities: the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration , the Federal Housing Administration, and the Federal Public Housing Authority .
  3. ^ Members: John M. Johansen. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 6, 2019 .
  4. ↑ nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians "J" / Johansen, John M. NA 1994 ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed June 27, 2015)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nationalacademy.org
  5. ↑ "John Johansen" , National Trust for Historic Preservation Modern Homes Survey for New Canaan, Connecticut (accessed on 22 June 2012).
  6. ↑ baltimoresun.com: Demolition to start on Mechanic Theater (accessed June 27, 2015)
  7. ↑ archidose.blogspot.de: Mummers Theater, RIP (accessed June 27, 2015)
  8. ^ John Johansen, last of New Canaan's Harvard Five, dies
  9. ^ The Goodyear House of Darien
  10. ^ New Canaan Dream House on the Market
  11. ^ Robert Hughes: Toward a New Slang. In: TIME . May 31, 1971.
  12. ^ "Stage Center (formerly Mummers Theater)" at Digital Imaging Project ( Bluffton University ) (accessed June 22, 2012).
  13. ↑ nytimes.com
personal data
SURNAME Johansen, John M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Johansen, John MacLane
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American architect
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 2012
Place of death Brewster , Massachusetts