About this talk

Running time: 40 minutes

John Johansen (born 1916) is best known for his Oklahoma Theatre Centre - inspiration for both Richard Rogers (see Genesis Of The New Lloyd's Underwriting Room and People Places) and Frank Gehry (see Counter Statements and Building Compound Shapes), his US Embassy building in Dublin, and his series of symbolic houses.

Here aged 93, in his third talk for Pidgeon Digital, he looks back over his career, from studying under Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius (see The Victory Of The Modern Approach Is Sure), to starting out in New Canaan, Connecticut as a member of the Harvard Five and providing John F Kennedy with one of his most famous lines.

His exploration of futuristic building technologies is now focused on nano-architecture, which he dubs a new species of architecture.

This is the third of Johansen's talks for us. In 1983 he gave us Ad Hoc Architecture, while in 1997 we have Future Realities.