A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
“We Cannot Not Know History”: Philip Johnson's Politics and Cynical Survival
In this essay, I analyze the extreme right-wing political philosophy developed and promoted by Philip Johnson between 1932 and 1940 and compare it to the Nietzschean architectural politics he has promoted in the postwar period. Johnson's intellectual legacy, in particular the architectural theory of Peter Eisenman, is discussed in terms of the “aestheticization” of politics and history. This analysis proceeds in light of German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk's conception of post-1945 “survival” through cynical reason in which one knows that what one is doing is wrong but does it anyway to survive and get ahead. In opposition to Eisenman and Johnson's cynical reason, I propose a return to what Sloterdijk describes as kynicism: the disclosure of the falseness of the cynic and the false structure of cynical society.
“We Cannot Not Know History”: Philip Johnson's Politics and Cynical Survival
In this essay, I analyze the extreme right-wing political philosophy developed and promoted by Philip Johnson between 1932 and 1940 and compare it to the Nietzschean architectural politics he has promoted in the postwar period. Johnson's intellectual legacy, in particular the architectural theory of Peter Eisenman, is discussed in terms of the “aestheticization” of politics and history. This analysis proceeds in light of German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk's conception of post-1945 “survival” through cynical reason in which one knows that what one is doing is wrong but does it anyway to survive and get ahead. In opposition to Eisenman and Johnson's cynical reason, I propose a return to what Sloterdijk describes as kynicism: the disclosure of the falseness of the cynic and the false structure of cynical society.
“We Cannot Not Know History”: Philip Johnson's Politics and Cynical Survival
Varnelis, Kazys (author)
Journal of Architectural Education ; 49 ; 92-104
1995-11-01
13 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
"We Cannot Not Know History": Philip Johnson's Politics and Cynical Survival
| British Library Online Contents | 1995
| British Library Online Contents | 2007
The Cynical Politics of the Public Home
| Taylor & Francis Verlag | 2024
An Olfactory Reconstruction of Philip Johnson's Glass House
| Online Contents | 2008
An Olfactory Reconstruction of Philip Johnson's Glass House
| British Library Online Contents | 2008