Before becoming an architect, philip johnson studied
a. philosophy
b. psychology
c. art history
d. literature

The correct answer is a. philosophy

Explanation:

Philip Cortelyou Johnson (1906-2005) was a reference in Post-Modern Architecture and represented the International Style. He studied Philosophy in Havard and graduated in 1930. Because of his critical essays about architecture, he was named as director of the Department of Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1936.

He returned to Havard in 1940 to study Architecture with Marcel Breuer, another expert in International Style. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who taught at the same institution, was his biggest influence. They worked together in the Seagram Building (1953) project, which was praised.  

Although he’s got notorious because of another landmark in architecture. Johnson has built his masterpiece, the Glass House (1949), which was conceived to be his residence in New Canaan, where he’s lived his entire life.  

He widely exploited the glass usage, creating a box with transparent walls. He’s got many influences, passing through the European modernist movements that avoid ornaments on behalf of the pureness of the material; given glimpses of the minimalist aesthetics; and also got references from XVIII and XIX centuries architectures.

Between his works, we can name the Temple Kneses Tifereth in Port Chester in New York (1959), where he first used curved lines; the art gallery at the Dumbarton Oaks in Washington D.C., (1963); the IDS Center in Minneapolis, (1973); the American Telephone and Telegraph Headquarters – now the Sony Building – (1984), which was considered by critics a masterpiece.  

Johnson has received many awards, but the main ones were the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal (1978) and the first Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 1979.