In his eightieth year, Philip Johnson has given the adage “architecture is an old man’s game” a new dimension. For what other architect of his generation can match Johnson’s recent exploits? Having started late (he did not finish his architecture degree at Harvard until he was thirty-seven), Johnson is now making up for it with a vengeance. In old age he has taken on a new role—one might say the new role—as masterbuilder for some of the nation’s principal real-estate interests; and in the process he has created a new genre of revivalist architecture, with a series of skyscrapers in an astonishing variety of historical styles.

Most of our major American cities have felt the impact of one of Johnson’s lavish office-tower designs, or soon will. The list is staggering. Chicago’s Loop is about to have a gable-roofed “Rootesque” tower on La Salle Street. Boston’s Back Bay has the “Baroque” New England Life, with the “Palladian” International Place at Fort Hill under way in the financial district. In San Francisco, three Johnson buildings have gone up since 1982: a harlequin-patterned Neiman Marcus store on Union Square, the cylindrical 101 California Street, and the mansard-roofed 580 California Street. Houston has the trapezoidal Pennzoil Place, the “Dutch-gabled” RepublicBank Center, Post Oak Central, and Transco Tower. Minneapolis has the faceted glass IDS Center; Pittsburgh the Gothic PPG Center; Dallas, Momentum Place and the “Second Empire” The Crescent; Atlanta the I.B.M.Atlantic Center; and Denver the United Bank Center. New York is