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A group of architects, designers, artists and academics has urged New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to remove architect Philip Johnson’s name from their galleries and titles on account of his ‘fascist’ past.
Philip Johnson, one of the most celebrated architects of the 20th century, was responsible for the design of museums, theatres, libraries, houses, gardens and corporate buildings, many of which were architectural masterpieces. He was also the recipient of the first Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1979.
Johnson’s association with the MoMA spanned more than six decades; he was the founding director of the museum’s Architecture and Design department. He died in 2005.
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The Harvard Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD) will no longer refer to a private residence at 9 Ash Street in Cambridge as the “Philip Johnson Thesis House.” Moving forward, the home, designed by and inhabited by Johnson while enrolled at the Harvard GSD in the 1940s, will now be known solely by its physical street address.
The move, announced by Harvard GSD dean Sarah M. Whiting in a December 5 letter, comes days after the Johnston Study Group, a largely anonymous collective dedicated to examining Johnson’s known racism and collaborative efforts with the Nazi Party, issued a public letter to both Harvard and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), two institutions with deep ties to Johnson. The November 27 letter, which was initially signed by over 30 architects, designs, artists, and educators, called upon both MoMA and Harvard to strike Johnson’s name from all titles and spaces due to the architect’s “widely documented white supremacist views and activities.”
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Philip Johnson s first building renamed amid protest over architect s white supremacist views
US architecture and design school Harvard GSD has removed Philip Johnson s name from a house he built while studying at the institution in response to a campaign calling for a rethink of the Nazi-supporting late architect s legacy.
Harvard Graduate School of Design announced this week it has renamed the house Johnson designed and built in the 1940s as his GSD thesis project.
Formerly known as Philip Johnson Thesis House, the single-storey dwelling is now named after its address, 9 Ash Street.
Philip Johnson is an inappropriate namesake
The move is a response to a campaign by activist organisation The Johnson Study Group that has also called on New York s Museum of Modern Art to remove Johnson s name from a curatorial post in light of the architect s commitment to white supremacy .