#95/Phillip Johnson, The Man in the Glass House: Author Mark Lamster

Architect Philip Johnson’s father invested 100 years ago in ALCOA, the huge aluminum company, which Johnson a millionaire in his '20s. Before he became an architect, however, Johnson organized a landmark exhibition on International Style at the Museum of Modern Art in 1932 which introduced important Modernist architects as Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Mies van der Rohe. He went on to get formal education in design but by then his reputation as a kingmaker of architects was firmly established.  He is regarded as one of the first architects to achieve celebrity status, as much for his design evangelism and connections than for his buildings. He died in 2005 at the age of 98. Today host George Smart with co-host Kate Wagner of McMansion Hell welcome Mark Lamster, an award-winning architectural critic of the Dallas Morning News and a professor of architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington. For nearly a decade, Lamster studied Johnson’s correspondence, archives, and even his FBI file for a new biography titled The Man in the Glass House.  He has been a contributing editor to Architectural Review, Design Observer, ID, Architect, Architectural Record, Metropolis, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal.