A chance meeting between Amon Carter’s daughter and New Yorker Philip C. Johnson (1906–2005) at a Houston dinner party led to the commissioning of Johnson as the future museum’s lead architect. Ruth Carter Stevenson (who was Ruth Carter Johnson at the time and no relation to the architect) had assumed the role of project manager for the new museum and was in a position to offer Philip Johnson the job. In February 1959, the City of Fort Worth and the Amon G. Carter Foundation entered into a contract for the creation of a museum of western art, with the city providing the remainder of the land needed to build the museum. Construction began in 1960, and the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art opened to the public on January 21, 1961 (see building history below).