The 'Crutch of Serving the Client'

"Then there's another very bad crutch that you will get much later in your career. Please, please, watch out for this one: the Crutch of Serving the Client. You can escape all criticism if you can say, 'Well, the client wanted it that way' ... Where do you draw the line? When do the client's demands permit you to shoot him and when do you give in gracefully? It's got to be clear, back in your own mind, that serving the client is one thing and the art of architecture another."

- Philip Johnson. From a lecture to students at Yale, 1954.

(I wonder whether this blog will turn out to be a good idea?)

Image: Philip Johnson guarding a model of his AT+T building, New York, 1984