cover image Phillip Johnson & John Burgee

Phillip Johnson & John Burgee

Phillip Johnson. Rizzoli International Publications, $50 (191pp) ISBN 978-0-8478-0658-4

The Johnson/Burgee partnership has become almost synonymous with the stylish high-rise office building, yet this showcase album offers much diversity despite the fact that most of their projects since 1979 have been office towers. The glistening, diamond-shaped Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif., commissioned by TV evangelist Robert Schuller, lifts worshipers' spirits. A curved, majestic facade of the Marshall Field department store in Houston catches motorists' attention. Dade County Cultural Center has a brick-colored Mediterranean plaza consonant with Florida's Spanish heritage. Superb production values, full-page color photographs and plans enhance this representative tour of the architects' recent work. The duo's historical touches are apt; a San Francisco office building synthesizes elements of Victorian town houses and Chicago School skycrapers into something uniquely appropriate to its congested space. (June 2