Architect Philip C. Johnson (1906–2005) maintained a forty-year association with the Amon Carter Museum of American Art as the designer of the institution's original building and two major expansions. The Amon G. Carter Foundation first commissioned Johnson in 1958 to devise a museum building that would showcase a core collection of western art and also serve as a memorial to the museum's founder. At the time Johnson won this commission he was also overseeing construction of the new Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Museum of Art in Utica, New York. Johnson found the Carter museum project particularly inspiring because of the spectacular view from the proposed museum's building site on a gently sloping hillside overlooking downtown Fort Worth. Amon G. Carter, Sr. had personally chosen the site in 1951. Johnson placed the museum building as far up the hillside as possible in order to maximize this panoramic view to the east.