John M. Johansen

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John M. Johansen (June 29, 1916 – October 26, 2012) was an American architect and a member of the Harvard Five, a group that helped shape modern architecture in the United States. Born in New York City to two painters, he grew up surrounded by art, which influenced his later designs. He studied at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he learned from Walter Gropius, and he played on the Harvard soccer team, earning first-team All-American honors in 1939.

After World War II, Johansen worked as a draftsman for Marcel Breuer, then for the National Housing Agency, and later for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. In 1948 he started his own practice in New Canaan, Connecticut, with colleagues Marcel Breuer, Philip Johnson, Landis Gores, and Eliot Noyes. He taught at Yale School of Architecture from 1955 to 1960.

Johansen focused on making buildings that serve people and communities. He favored functional design over flashy style and explored a simple “box” form that was economical and easy to build. Box House #1 (1950) was shown in a Museum of Modern Art exhibition, and Box House #2, the McNiff House, followed in 1955. He also used Palladian ideas in several homes, most famously Villa Ponte (the Warner House) built in 1957.

Among his other houses are the Goodyear House (1955), the Bridge House (1957), the Telephone Pole House (1968) made with 104 poles, the Labyrinth House (1966) with no windows, and the Plastic Tent House (1975) made of translucent plastic. He designed notable public buildings as well, such as the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre in Baltimore (1967), and Clark University’s Goddard Library (1969). The Mummers Theater in Oklahoma City (Stage Center) opened in 1970 but was demolished in 2014. He co-designed Clowes Memorial Hall at Butler University with Evans Woollen III, which opened in 1963 and is still in use.

Johansen became an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1969 and a full Academician in 1994. He was married to Ati Gropius Johansen, an art educator and the adopted daughter of Walter Gropius. He lived in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, and died in 2012 at age 96.