MY CAREER

My first architectural office in 1948 was set up in the house we occupied in New Canaan. On one particular day I was free of domestic responsibilities; free to devote myself to my ambitious, professional efforts, except for my wife’s reminder:

“Please keep an eye on our daughter.” This was Deborah, aged three.

It would be on this day that I was to meet there with my first architectural clients. While I desperately tried to give this domestic room some semblance of a professional atmosphere, my clients entered.

During our most earnest talks of the Modern Style and modest construction costs, the door opened and from the kitchen, Deborah entered and held out to me a fresh egg. Mortified, I took it from her with a grimaced smile and placed it on my drawing board, from which it rolled and smashed on the floor. My clients were not amused. Then after returning to our serious talk, Deborah returned again with two more eggs. At this point, my clients, whose patience was exhausted, rose from their chairs in disgust, and with no comment, walked out.

Battling my feelings of professional disgrace and of love for this dear child, I smiled and said to her, “Really, what next!”

“Oh,” said she, “come into the living room.”  There, she showed me with great pride, lengths of raw bacon laid out on all the windowsills.

As they say professionally, “I had struck out on my own.” 

“I had struck out,” that was clear.

“On my own” - on my own what?

This story was delivered at the National AIA Convention in Florida, 1963

From The Misadventures of John Johansen

TOOTHPICKS

First, I must admit to my degree of dyslexia. More politely, I have been noted as one whose thinking processes are “oblique”, or at times exhibits miscarriage of logic. 

Such was the case when years ago, my wife and I were feverishly preparing for a cocktail party. While arranging small sausages on a plate, she cried out, “We have no toothpicks to spear them with; you must rush out to the market and bring me a box of these, quickly!” Guests are due at any time.

I summoned all my dedication as a husband, my energy and resourcefulness for this challenging mission. At the first market down the block they were out of toothpicks, likewise at another; at another, the wrong kind. In desperation, I tried a drug store. There, I believed I had finally found what we wanted.

With this, I triumphantly returned home and presented, with some pride, the very item I believed would make the party a success. I presented my wife with dental floss. She was not amused.

To redeem myself, might I be redeemed, or even praised, I hoped, I tied, with a looped handle, each sausage on the plate with a small piece of dental floss.    

From The Misadventures of John Johansen

ABOUT JACK

Johansen was not close to his Harvard classmate John F Kennedy. Jack, he recalls, was not much into athletics nor academia. Upon graduation, he was voted least likely to succeed; he was, however, voted class politician.

After his presidential appointment, Johansen wrote Kennedy a letter. It said, “I want to be among those who ask, not what the country can do for me but what I can do for the country.” 

Johansen’s statement was used by the administration with no credits, but an acknowledgement was made by Kennedy in a note that he wrote back to Johansen.

Soon after that correspondence, President John F Kennedy assured the construction of Johansen’s design of the US Embassy in Dublin, Ireland, a project which had been forestalled by a self-imposed architectural critic.

From The Misadventures of John Johansen

Emerging from a chilly upstate New York pond after his daily swim (October 2006), a fit and trim 90 year-old Johansen acknowledged with a smile, “I’m taking my chances, you know... swimming into late autumn.”

Since his move to Cape Cod  in 2009, Johansen stays active with exercise and, weather permitting, ocean dips and daily swims in a pond near his home.