PositiveHarvard MagazineLamster’s new biography, The Man in the Glass House: Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century, reads like an Ayn Rand plot rewritten by Henry James ... Lamster...unequivocally condemns Johnson not just for sympathizing with the Nazis, but actively providing them with material support in the 1930s ... Lamster treats this biographical problem in a nuanced way. No one thinks a former Nazi sympathizer’s building morally corrupts all who gaze upon it or pass through it. No one seriously thinks we should tear down the landmark Seagram Building Johnson built in the 1950s with Mies van der Rohe, or demolish the Glass House. Lamster, however, pays careful attention to how aspects of buildings throughout Johnson’s career start to look disturbing in light of what he once believed: the \'authoritarian pomp\' of the New York State Theater, the bunker-like art gallery on the Glass House estate, a possible citation of a pogrom-ruined village as the inspiration for that house’s central chimney ... It is as enjoyable and informative to read Lamster’s descriptions of the buildings he loves as it is of those he hates.
