Philip Johnson 1906–2005

Philip Johnson is one of the most prolific and ingenious architects of the modern era. Johnson attended Harvard University in 1923 to study Greek. Upon his graduation in 1927, Johnson toured Europe and explored emerging architectural movements. In 1930, Johnson became the director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1942, Johnson returned to the Harvard Graduate School of Architecture, where his thesis project and home – the Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut, 1949 – established Johnson as leader of the modernist style. In the 1950s, Johnson joined Mies van der Rohe in designing the Seagram Building, planning its interiors and designing the iconic Four Seasons Restaurant. During the 1960s, Johnson moved away from Modernism and began to create designs in styles ranging from Romanesque to Neo-Classical, and later, Johnson moved into his Post-Modern period, creating buildings like the Williams Tower in Houston and the 550 Madison Avenue Building in New York.

Richard Kelly 1910–1977

Few designers have contributed more to the history of modern architectural lighting than Richard Kelly. Born in 1910 in Zanesville, Ohio, Kelly left the Midwest to attend Columbia University. He received his BA from Yale University School of Architecture in 1944 before starting a career focused on modern lighting. Many of Kelly’s striking designs were realized while working alongside the famed architect, Philip Johnson for whom he designed the lighting concepts for the Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut. The pair would collaborate again on Seagram Building in New York designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, which was heralded by Architectural Forum in 1958 as the “one of the best-illuminated buildings ever constructed”. Kelly’s lengthy career also saw him introduce groundbreaking lighting concepts to architectural masterpieces designed by Richard Neutra, Eero Saarinen and Louis Kahn. Today, Kelly’s timeless designs remain the foundation in which architects and designers look at lighting today.