Pritzker Prize-winning architect Philip Johnson was an impassioned supporter of Nazism, in which he found a "new international ideal", according to a new book by American journalist Marc Wortman.
Wortman describes Johnson's role in pushing the Nazi agenda in the US in an in-depth story in Vanity Fair magazine, adapted from the writer's new book, 1941: Fighting the Shadow War, which examines America's involvement in the second world war.
The author describes Johnson's growing support for the Nazis in the 1930s and his efforts to import Fascism to America.
"He found in Nazism a new international ideal," writes Wortman. "The aesthetic power and exaltation he experienced in viewing Modernist architecture found its complete national expression in the Hitler-centred Fascist movement." Wortman claims Johnson took no issue with the Nazi's treatment of Jews or creators of "degenerate art", even as he helped friends at the Bauhaus flee Germany.
Portrait of Philip Johnson by B Pietro Filardo
The author also describes how Johnson aligned himself with Fascist supporters in the US and participated in political campaigns. He backed controversial figures such as Charles Edward Coughlin, an antisemitic Roman Catholic priest who promoted Fascist ideas. For one of Coughlin's rallies in Chicago, Johnson allegedly designed a speaking platform modelled after one used by Hitler.
Johnson, one of America's best-known architects of the 20th century, wa...