DOCSLIB.ORG

Architecture After Las Vegas Stanislaus Von Moos, Martino Stierli

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Architecture After Las Vegas Stanislaus Von Moos, Martino Stierli Stanislaus vonMoos, MartinoStierli (eds.) EYES THAT Scheidegger&Spiess Yale School of Architecture SAW Architecture AfterLas Vegas I Timelines andContexts II Eyes That Saw III On Trial: The“DecoratedShed” IV What We Learned III 11 Robert A.M.Stern On Trial: Preface The“DecoratedShed” 13 Stanislaus vonMoosand MartinoStierli Introduction 267 Neil Levine Robert Venturiand Denise ScottBrown’s I Duck/DecoratedShedDyadinaHistorical Perspective Timelines andContexts 291 Karin Theunissen Billboarding andDirectional Spaces 33 EveBlau 325 Stanislaus vonMoos Pedagogy andPolitics: Making Placeand Learning AViewfromthe Gondola:Notes on History, from LasVegas Spectacle andModernArchitecture 67 Mary McLeod 373 ElizabethDillerand DavidAllin Wrestlingwith MeaninginArchitecture: ChainCity Learning from LasVegas 93 Valéry Didelon IV TheRevolutionisDead; LongLivethe Revolution What We Learned 106 Valéry Didelon TheLearningfromLas VegasCase(1968–79) 381 Denise ScottBrown LasVegas Learning,Las VegasTeaching II 408 VenturiScott Brown&Associates Eyes That Saw Robert Venturiand Denise ScottBrown’s Memory 419 Robert Venturi 129 MartinoStierli What Did YouLearn? LasVegas andthe MobilizedGaze 431 DavidM.Schwarz 175 KatherineSmith HaussmannBackwards PopPrecedentsand Contemporary Contexts 457 Rafael Moneo 212 BeatrizColomina ArchitectorCritic?Both/And Learning from Learning 461 Stan Allen 232 DanGraham AfterLas Vegas: Five Observations AfterVenturi on VenturiScott Brown 247 PeterFischli From Dessau to LasVegas 483 Appendix Previouspage EveBlau GatewaytoDisneyland,Anaheim, CA.PagefromCharles Moore. “You Have to Payfor thePublic Life,” Perspecta 9/10(1965). Pedagogy andPolitics: Making Place andLearningfromLas Vegas In thelate1960s theYaleSchoolofArt andArchitecturewas one of thekey sites at whichthe trajectories of politicalactivismand Postmodern critique intersected,generatingaculturallandscape andpolitical subtextfor theculturalradicalismthatfollowedin theirwake. At Yale that collisiongenerated aseriesofprojects, themostinfluential of whichwas thestudio/seminarLearning from LasVegas,orFormAnalysisasDesignResearch, taught by Robert Venturi, Denise ScottBrown,and Steven Izenourin thefall of 1968. Butthere were many others.After Yale pres- identKingman Brewsterbrought in CharlesMoore to chair theDepartmentofArchitecturein1965, architecture students became increasinglyinvolved in urbanresearch, experiments with film,video,and communications technology,“intermedia” installations,new methodsand materialsofconstruction(includ- ingfoamand inflatable structures), andbuildingprojectsin remoteand impoverishedparts of ruralAppalachia, all of which held thepromise of newdirectionsfor thediscipline.1 This con- text is critical forunderstandingboththe milieu in which Learn- ingfromLas Vegas took shapeand thecurrentsthatshifted the 1Charles W. Moore(1925–93) waschair of theDepartmentofArchitecturefrom1965to1969 andthendeanofthe Faculties of Design andPlanningfrom1969to1970. Formore, seeEve Blau, Architecture or Revolution:Charles Mooreand Yale in theLate1960s (New Haven: Yale University SchoolofArchitecture,2001);LeslieL.Luebbers, “Place,Time, andthe Artof Architecture:The EducationofCharles W. Moore” (PhD diss., InstituteofFineArts, New York University,2001);Charles W. Moore, YouHavetoPay forthe PublicLife: Selected Essays, ed. Kevin P. Keim (Cambridge:The MIT Press, 2000); andRichard W. Hayes, TheYaleBuild- ingProject:The First40Years (New Haven: Yale University Press andYaleSchoolofArchi- tecture, 2007). IamindebtedtoPeter Rose andDan Scully fortheir insights andmemoriesof Yale in thelate1960s,and to Danfor hishelpful readingofthistext. An earlierversion of this essay appeared in Log,no.38 (fall2016). 33 EveBlau Pedagogy andPolitics critique of Modernism from aquestioning of establishedcodes work establishedhim as asignificant educator anddesignerin of practice to afocus on signsasgeneratorsofradical newforms theearly 1960sand ledtothe invitation to head thearchitecture of society, culture, andsubjectivity. department at Yale.Italsoinformedafundamental tenetofhis In 1968,asMoore reported to Brewster, Yale was“riding architecture andpedagogy. thecrest of thepresent wave.” Theschoolwas held to be the In 1962 Moore, with hisBerkeleycolleaguesDonlyn “notably turned-onfree-wheelingplace where It’s Happening,” Lyndon,Sim Vander Ryn, andPatrick J. Quinn, publishedthe attracting “first-rate” studentsand “aninordinateamount” of firstinaseriesoftextsonplace, titled “TowardMakingPlaces,” positivemedia attention(ProgressiveArchitecture wasdubbedthe in J. B. Jackson’smagazine Landscape.Inthe openingparagraphs “YaleAlumniMagazine” becauseitfeaturedYalestudent work so they setout thefundamental premise: “The basicfunctionof frequently).2 Yale’s popularity andnewsworthiness,Moore sug- architecture ...pastthe provisionofmerelyshelter,pastthe gested, were duefirst to thequality of thestudentsand second expressivemanipulationofmaterials or even of space...is “tothe absenceofrestrictionsontheir imaginationand their thecreation of place, of what SusanneLangercallsan‘ethnic involvement, [rather] than to anyhighlyorganized regimen.”He domain.’ This creation of placeamounts at firsttotakingpos- also observed that “our profession is,atthispoint in time,dra- sessionofaportionofthe earth’ssurface.Then, architecture maticallydevoidofany impressive—or useful—bodyofteachable beinganact,thatprocess of takingpossessionisabstracted.” 5 theory.Thismay turn outtobeadisguised boon,asit leaves us Thearchitectural act, Moorelater elaborated,is“theordered embarrassingly free to deal with rapidlydeveloping problems of extensionofman’sideaabout himselfinspecificlocations on theurban environment;itcertainlyhas theeffectofheightening, thefaceofthe earth.”6 This conceptofplace as specific and andspeedingthe wavesofsignificant change.” 3 culturallydeterminedrelates to anumberofphilosophical and When Moorewas recruited by Yale he hadbeenchair of the cultural discourses of thetime, includingJackson’s “human architecture department at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, geography,” thepoeticphenomenology of Gaston Bachelardand forthree years. There hisobjectivehad been tobroaden thecur- MauriceMerleau-Ponty,and thediscourses of psychoanalysis,all riculumtoinclude “everything from computerstooperations of whichMoore referenced in histeaching. ButMoore’s signal research; mathematical,social, andall kindsofacademictheo- contribution wastolinkthese discourses specifically to archi- ries,” nottomakeitmoretechnocraticbut to enable architects to tectureand urbanism andtowhathesaw as thearchitect’s single be “moresubtle, more supple,morecomplex,instead of rigid.”4 most importanttask: to make place in an increasingly “aspatial Mooreworked closelywithJosephEsherickonthe curriculum electronic world.”7 andrecruited ChristopherAlexander andarchitecturehistorians Twoworks in particular precipitated Moore’sappointment SpiroKostofand NormaEvenson to thefaculty.But thecentral at Yale.His most importanttextonthe subjectofplacemaking, focusofMoore’s teaching,writing,and practice whileatBerkeley “You Have to Payfor thePublicLife,”was publishedinYale’s wasthe development of what he called a“theory of place.” This Perspecta in 1965.InitMoore sets outtoconsidermonumental 2Charles W. Moore, Annual Reportofthe Chairman,DepartmentofArchitecture,SchoolofArt andArchitecture,tothe Presidentand FellowsofYaleUniversityfor theAcademicYear1967–1968. 5DonlynLyndon, CharlesW.Moore,Patrick J. Quinn, andSim Vander Ryn, “Toward 3Ibid. Making Places,” Landscape 12,no.1(Autumn 1962): 32. 4Charles W. Moore, oral history interviewbySallyWoodbridge, December 28,1984, tran- 6Moore,“Plug It in Ramses,and SeeifItLightsUp, Because We Aren’t GoingtoKeepIt script,ArchivesofAmericanArt,Smithsonian Institution. Moorebegan teachingatBerkeley Unless It Works,” Perspecta 11 (1967):34. in 1959. 7Ibid.,37. 34 35 EveBlau Pedagogy andPolitics architecture as part of theurban sceneinCalifornia, achallenge offeredtohim by editor Robert A.M.Stern(Fig. 1).“Perspecta’s editorssuspected,Ipresume,thatIwould discoverthatin Californiathere is no contemporary monumental architec- ture,orthatthere is no urbanscene,” Moorewrites.8 Rejecting Perspecta’s termsofreference, he asserts that monumentalityisan act, notathing, “not aproductofcompositionaltechniques, ... of flamboyanceofform, or even of conspicuousconsumption of space,time, or money.” 9 Rather, monumental and urban,he claims,are adjectives that describe individuals“giving up some- thing, spaceormoney or prominence or concern, to thepublic realm.”The “function” of that actistomarkaplace that has more than privateimportanceorinterest.10 On onelevel Moore’sassertionscan be read as areprise of themonumentality discourseofthe 1940s.11 But, significantly, he shifts theterms of discussion from architectural form to politi- cal space:Where,heasks, is thepublic realminacitylikeLos Angeles, whereall property andspace areprivatizedand hardly anyonegives anything to thepublic?The closestthing LosAnge- leshas to atraditionallyconceived public realm, Mooreproposes, is Disneyland,which he describesasanersatzurbanismthatlooks andfeels like therealthing butlacks politicalspace,and there- fore does notallow forpolitical experience.InDisneyland there is nowhere“to have an effectiverevolution.”12 Theonlyspaces in LosAngeles conducivetorevolutionare thefreeways. Just as theCommunardstooktothe streetsofParis in 1871,Angelenos wishingtostage arevolutionincontemporaryLos Angelesmust take to thefreeways. Alternatively, Mooresuggests, they
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Remembering Robert Venturi, a Modern Mannerist
    The Plan Journal 4 (1): 253-259, 2019 doi: 10.15274/tpj.2019.04.01.1 Remembering Robert Venturi, a Modern Mannerist In Memoriam / THEORY Maurizio Sabini After the generation of the “founders” of the Modern Movement, very few architects had the same impact that Robert Venturi had on architecture and the way we understand it in our post-modern era. Aptly so and with a virtually universal consensus, Vincent Scully called Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) “probably the most important writing on the making of architecture since Le Corbusier’s Vers une architecture, of 1923.” 1 And I would submit that no other book has had an equally consequential impact ever since, even though Learning from Las Vegas (published by Venturi with Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour in 1972) has come quite close. As Aaron Betsky has observed: Like the Modernism that Venturi sought to nuance and enrich, many of the elements for which he argued were present in even the most reduced forms of high Modernism. Venturi was trying to save Modernism from its own pronouncements more than from its practices. To a large extent, he won, to the point now that we cannot think of architecture since 1966 without reference to Robert Venturi.2 253 The Plan Journal 4 (1): 253-259, 2019 - doi: 10.15274/tpj.2019.04.01.1 www.theplanjournal.com Figure 1. Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (London: The Architectural Press, with the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1977; or. ed., New York: The Museum of Art, 1966).
    [Show full text]
  • Protecting Postmodern Historicism: Identification, Ve Aluation, and Prescriptions for Preeminent Sites
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Theses (Historic Preservation) Graduate Program in Historic Preservation 2013 Protecting Postmodern Historicism: Identification, vE aluation, and Prescriptions for Preeminent Sites Jonathan Vimr University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/hp_theses Part of the Historic Preservation and Conservation Commons Vimr, Jonathan, "Protecting Postmodern Historicism: Identification, vE aluation, and Prescriptions for Preeminent Sites" (2013). Theses (Historic Preservation). 211. https://repository.upenn.edu/hp_theses/211 Suggested Citation: Vimr, Jonathan (2013). Protecting Postmodern Historicism: Identification, vE aluation, and Prescriptions for Preeminent Sites. (Masters Thesis). University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/hp_theses/211 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Protecting Postmodern Historicism: Identification, vE aluation, and Prescriptions for Preeminent Sites Abstract Just as architectural history traditionally takes the form of a march of styles, so too do preservationists repeatedly campaign to save seminal works of an architectural manner several decades after its period of prominence. This is currently happening with New Brutalism and given its age and current unpopularity will likely soon befall postmodern historicism. In hopes of preventing the loss of any of the manner’s preeminent works, this study provides professionals with a framework for evaluating the significance of postmodern historicist designs in relation to one another. Through this, the limited resources required for large-scale preservation campaigns can be correctly dedicated to the most emblematic sites. Three case studies demonstrate the application of these criteria and an extended look at recent preservation campaigns provides lessons in how to best proactively preserve unpopular sites.
    [Show full text]
  • React/Review | Volume 1 13
    react/review | volume 1 13 Outside of Architecture: Between Mediating and Navigating the Air Katarzyna Balug Air is the physical connection between us and our environment, transmitting our sense experience of light, heat, sound, taste, smell and pressure. But its very transparency prevents us from observing its continuous transformations. Atmosfields and pneumatic environments aim to reveal the aesthetic of air, both in the natural states which make up the atmosphere and by using thin membranes to manifest their motions and forces, in order to extend and change our direct experience of air and our relation to our atmospheric environment. – Graham Stevens1 Reveal, make manifest, extend, and relate: English artist Graham Stevens was uniquely articulate in capturing, in words and structures, the capacity of the inflatable form to condition the human’s relationship with her environment. Throughout 1960s Western Europe and the United States, young architects and artists like Stevens adopted the materials and aesthetics of the lunar Space Race to create immersive air-filled environments especially attuned to Earth. However, there was a significant difference in the operating logics of space structures and the Earth-bound forms they informed. While the pursuit of spaceflight had, since the mid-nineteenth century, emphasized the keeping out of the environment and the production of an artificial, fully controlled and enclosed atmosphere, inflatable architectures invited the outside in. These forms continually registered and mediated the relationship 1 Graham Stevens, “Pneumatics and Atmospheres,” Architectural Digest, no. 3 (1972): 166. react/review | volume 1 51 between circulating air and the plastic membrane, which together formed a structure without rigidity, and the body that occupied the resulting space.
    [Show full text]
  • Postmodernism
    Black POSTMODERNISM STYLE AND SUBVERSION, 1970–1990 TJ254-3-2011 IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm 175L 130 Stora Enso M/A Magenta(V) 130 Stora Enso M/A 175L IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm TJ254-3-2011 1 Black Black POSTMODERNISM STYLE AND SUBVERSION, 1970–1990 TJ254-3-2011 IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm 175L 130 Stora Enso M/A Magenta(V) 130 Stora Enso M/A 175L IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm TJ254-3-2011 Edited by Glenn Adamson and Jane Pavitt V&A Publishing TJ254-3-2011 IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm 175L 130 Stora Enso M/A Magenta(V) 130 Stora Enso M/A 175L IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm TJ254-3-2011 2 3 Black Black Exhibition supporters Published to accompany the exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970 –1990 Founded in 1976, the Friends of the V&A encourage, foster, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London assist and promote the charitable work and activities of 24 September 2011 – 15 January 2012 the Victoria and Albert Museum. Our constantly growing membership now numbers 27,000, and we are delighted that the success of the Friends has enabled us to support First published by V&A Publishing, 2011 Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970–1990. Victoria and Albert Museum South Kensington Lady Vaizey of Greenwich CBE London SW7 2RL Chairman of the Friends of the V&A www.vandabooks.com Distributed in North America by Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York The exhibition is also supported by © The Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2011 The moral right of the authors has been asserted.
    [Show full text]
  • School of Architecture 2010–2011
    BULLETIN OF YALE UNIVERSITY BULLETIN OF YALE UNIVERSITY Periodicals postage paid New Haven ct 06520-8227 New Haven, Connecticut School of Architecture 2010–2011 School of Architecture 2010–2011 BULLETIN OF YALE UNIVERSITY Series 106 Number 4 June 30, 2010 BULLETIN OF YALE UNIVERSITY Series 106 Number 4 June 30, 2010 (USPS 078-500) The University is committed to basing judgments concerning the admission, education, is published seventeen times a year (one time in May and October; three times in June and employment of individuals upon their qualifications and abilities and a∞rmatively and September; four times in July; five times in August) by Yale University, 2 Whitney seeks to attract to its faculty, sta≠, and student body qualified persons of diverse back- Avenue, New Haven CT 0651o. Periodicals postage paid at New Haven, Connecticut. grounds. In accordance with this policy and as delineated by federal and Connecticut law, Yale does not discriminate in admissions, educational programs, or employment against Postmaster: Send address changes to Bulletin of Yale University, any individual on account of that individual’s sex, race, color, religion, age, disability, PO Box 208227, New Haven CT 06520-8227 status as a special disabled veteran, veteran of the Vietnam era, or other covered veteran, or national or ethnic origin; nor does Yale discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation Managing Editor: Linda Koch Lorimer or gender identity or expression. Editor: Lesley K. Baier University policy is committed to a∞rmative action under law in employment of PO Box 208230, New Haven CT 06520-8230 women, minority group members, individuals with disabilities, special disabled veterans, veterans of the Vietnam era, and other covered veterans.
    [Show full text]
  • VSBA Bibliography - Writings by Others at Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates
    VSBA Bibliography - Writings by Others at Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates 1970 Izenour, Steven, "Education in the 1970's -- Teaching for an Altered Reality," Architectural Record, October 1970. 1971 Izenour, Steven, "Civic Center Competition for Thousand Oaks, California; Entry by Venturi and Rauch in Association with Steven Izenour and Tony Pett," Architectural Design, February 1971, pp. 113-114. 1972 Carroll, Virginia, Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, "Levittown et Apres," L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, no. 163, August-September 1972, pp. 38-42. 1973 Hirshorn, Paul, and Steven Izenour, "Learning from Hamburgers: The Architecture of White Towers," Architecture Plus, June 1973, pp. 46-55. 1975 Carroll, Virginia, Denise Scott Brown, and Robert Venturi, "Styling, or 'These houses are exactly the same. They just look different.'" Lotus 9, 1975. (In Italian and English; extract from Learning from Levittown, a study in progress) 1976 Taraila, Stanley, “Signs That the Strand Can,” Journal of Architectural Education, Volume XXX Number 2, November 1976. 1977 Headley, Frances, (Hundt). Series of articles on historic Philadelphia buildings. Arts Exchange (1977-78) (Horticultural Hall, Antelope House, Philadelphia College of Art, Widener House, Lit Brothers, Eastern State Penitentiary, Centennial National Bank) 1978 Headley, Frances, (Hundt), and David Marohn, "The Comic and Fantastic Bosses at the Quad," Arts Exchange, May-June, 1978, pp. 12-17, 35. 1979 Hundt, Frances, "New Light on Neon," Portfolio, December-January, 1979-80, pp. 38-40. Izenour, Steven, White Towers, (with Paul Hirshorn). The MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass., 1979. F - 1 VSBA Bibliography - Writings by Others at Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates Matheu, Christine, "Aldo van Eyck: Both/And," Skyline, April 1979, p.
    [Show full text]
  • Art & Architecture Design Cultural Studies
    ART & ARCHITECTURE DESIGN CULTURAL STUDIES NEW AND RECENT TITLES THE MIT PRESS Muriel Cooper David Reinfurt and Robert Wiesenberger Foreword by Lisa Strausfeld Afterword by Nicholas Negroponte Muriel Cooper (1925–1994) was the pioneering designer who created the iconic MIT Press colophon (or logo)— seven bars that represent the lowercase letters “mitp” as abstracted books on a shelf. She designed a modernist monument, the encyclopedic volume The Bauhaus (1969), and the graphically dazzling and controversial first edition of Learning from Las Vegas (1972). She used an offset press as an artistic tool, worked with a large-format Polaroid camera, and had an early vision of e-books. Cooper was the first design director of the MIT Press, the cofounder of the Vis- ible Language Workshop at MIT, and the first woman to be granted tenure at MIT’s Media Lab, where she developed software interfaces and taught a new generation of design- ers. She began her four-decade career at MIT by designing vibrant printed flyers for the Office of Publications; her final projects were digital. This lavishly illustrated volume documents Cooper’s career in abundant detail, with prints, sketches, book covers, posters, mechanicals, student projects, and photographs, from her work in design, teaching, and research at MIT. A humanist among scientists, Cooper embraced dynamism, simultaneity, transparency, and expressiveness across all the media she worked in. More than two decades after her career came to a premature end, Muriel Cooper’s legacy is still unfolding. This beautiful slip-cased volume, designed by Yasuyo Iguchi, looks back at a body of work that is as contemporary now as it was when Cooper was experimenting with IBM Selectric typewriters.
    [Show full text]
  • School of Architecture 2016–2017 School of Architecture School Of
    BULLETIN OF YALE UNIVERSITY BULLETIN OF YALE BULLETIN OF YALE UNIVERSITY Periodicals postage paid New Haven ct 06520-8227 New Haven, Connecticut School of Architecture 2016–2017 School of Architecture 2016 –2017 BULLETIN OF YALE UNIVERSITY Series 112 Number 4 June 30, 2016 BULLETIN OF YALE UNIVERSITY Series 112 Number 4 June 30, 2016 (USPS 078-500) The University is committed to basing judgments concerning the admission, education, is published seventeen times a year (one time in May and October; three times in June and employment of individuals upon their qualifications and abilities and a∞rmatively and September; four times in July; five times in August) by Yale University, 2 Whitney seeks to attract to its faculty, sta≠, and student body qualified persons of diverse back- Avenue, New Haven CT 0651o. Periodicals postage paid at New Haven, Connecticut. grounds. In accordance with this policy and as delineated by federal and Connecticut law, Yale does not discriminate in admissions, educational programs, or employment against Postmaster: Send address changes to Bulletin of Yale University, any individual on account of that individual’s sex, race, color, religion, age, disability, PO Box 208227, New Haven CT 06520-8227 status as a protected veteran, or national or ethnic origin; nor does Yale discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. Managing Editor: Kimberly M. Go≠-Crews University policy is committed to a∞rmative action under law in employment of Editor: Lesley K. Baier women, minority group members, individuals with disabilities, and protected veterans. PO Box 208230, New Haven CT 06520-8230 Inquiries concerning these policies may be referred to Valarie Stanley, Director of the O∞ce for Equal Opportunity Programs, 221 Whitney Avenue, 3rd Floor, 203.432.0849.
    [Show full text]
  • School of Architecture 2001–2002
    School of Architecture 2001–2002 bulletin of yale university Series 97 Number 3 June 30, 2001 Bulletin of Yale University Postmaster: Send address changes to Bulletin of Yale University, PO Box 208227, New Haven ct 06520-8227 PO Box 208230, New Haven ct 06520-8230 Periodicals postage paid at New Haven, Connecticut Issued sixteen times a year: one time a year in May, October, and November; two times a year in June and September; three times a year in July; six times a year in August Managing Editor: Linda Koch Lorimer Editor: David J. Baker Editorial and Publishing Office: 175 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, Connecticut Publication number (usps 078-500) The closing date for material in this bulletin was June 20, 2001. The University reserves the right to withdraw or modify the courses of instruction or to change the instructors at any time. ©2001 by Yale University. All rights reserved. The material in this bulletin may not be repro- duced, in whole or in part, in any form, whether in print or electronic media, without written permission from Yale University. Open House All interested applicants are invited to attend the School’s Open House: Thursday, November 1, 2001. Inquiries Requests for additional information may be directed to the Registrar, Yale School of Architecture, PO Box 208242, 180 York Street, New Haven ct 06520-8242; telephone, 203.432.2296; fax, 203.432.7175. Web site: www.architecture.yale.edu/ Photo credits: John Jacobson, Sarah Lavery, Michael Marsland, Victoria Partridge, Alec Purves, Ezra Stoller Associates, Yale Office of Public Affairs School of Architecture 2001–2002 bulletin of yale university Series 97 Number 3 June 30, 2001 c yale university ce Pla Lake 102-8 Payne 90-6 Whitney — Gym south Ray York Square Place Tompkins New House Residence rkway er Pa Hall A Tow sh m u n S Central tree Whalley Avenue Ezra Power Stiles t Morse Plant north The Yale Bookstore > Elm Street Hall of Graduate Studies Mory’s Sterling St.
    [Show full text]
  • Smithsonian Institution, Signs of Life Exhibition
    VSBA SIGNS OF LIFE: SYMBOLS IN THE AMERICAN CITY, EXHIBITION Architects: Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc. Location: Renwick Gallery of the National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C. Client: The Smithsonian Institution Completion: 1976 This Bicentennial exhibition was sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute and installed in its Renwick Gallery. VSBA’s exhibit explored historical and contemporary signs and symbols in the American city. It emphasized the rich persuasion of signs and symbols in our environment, demonstrating their pervasiveness throughout our society. The exhibit was structured in three parts: signs and symbols in the home (furnishings, decoration, architectural style, and details); on the commercial strip (signs, architecture, gas stations, motels, etc.); and on the street (urban commercial streets, civic buildings as symbols, parks, squares, etc.). The exhibit attracted major attention on a popular as well as a critical level and was one of the most successful exhibits the Renwick Gallery has installed. Signs of Life was based on the “Learning from Las Vegas” research project conducted by VSBA at Yale University in 1968 and on our further extensive research and analysis of American cities. Like the earlier books Contradiction and Complexity by Robert Venturi and Learning From Las Vegas by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, Signs of Life provoked a major public and professional reassessment of the importance of diversity and the vernacular in our lives and of the way we perceive our environment. 1 VSBA Signs of Life in the American City, Smithsonian Institution 2 VSBA 3 VSBA Signs of Life in the American City, Smithsonian Institution 4.
    [Show full text]
  • Mainstream and Marginal: Situating the American Roadside
    gabrielle esperdy Mainstream and Marginal Situating the American Roadside Photographs of John Margolies Beginning in 1972, the photographer John From Resorts of the Catskills (1979) to Roadside Margolies (born 1940) spent thirty- six years America (2010), Margolies has published more documenting commercial vernacular buildings than a dozen books.2 Resorts is a serious exhi- across the United States. His body of work, now bition catalogue in which scholarly essays on including an archive of thirteen thousand photo- architectural and social history by Elizabeth graphs and related ephemeral material, is an un- Blackmar, Elizabeth Cromley, and Neil Harris paralleled record of the American roadside in the accompany one hundred of Margolies’s photo- second half of the twentieth century. Margolies’s graphs. Roadside is a sumptuous coffee table book photographs have appeared in numerous popular with a foreword by architecture curator C. Ford magazines, books, postcard collections, and even Peatross, a profile by design writer Phil Patton, magnet sets. He has presented his work in slide and more than four hundred of Margolies’s pho- lectures, for the general public and academic au- tographs packaged as a fine art publication. Most diences alike, for more than three decades. He of the intervening volumes strike a different tone. has attracted a devoted following of roadside With titles like Fun along the Road (1990), Ticket enthusiasts, including many who, as is evident to Paradise (1991), and Pump and Circumstance on the Internet, have followed in his tire- tracks, (1993), these books are breezy, cutesy, even crossing the country to visit and photograph the goofy, with jam- packed pages that idiosyncrati- same roadside buildings.1 While most scholars cally document a range of commercial building of commercial vernacular architecture are famil- typologies through vintage postcards, maps, bro- iar with Margolies’s photography, his work as a chures, matchbooks, and, most especially, the whole has received little scholarly scrutiny.
    [Show full text]
  • 11/26/07 Art 75600 Lecture 11 Issues of Modernism And
    11/26/07 Art 75600 Lecture 11 Issues of Modernism and Postmodernism in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s International responses to CIAM urbanism and the hegemony of doctrinaire, earlier “international style” modernist planning and architecture: the proliferation of a series of new attitudes and interpretations of architecture, all of which seek liberation from the doctrinaire approaches of the CIAM modernist outlook. In America, a major response came from Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, 1966, and Learning from Las Vegas, 1972: books that reject a purist, “high art” view of modern architecture, and champion the populist, commercial, and everyday main street and billboard as perfectly legitimate components of modern culture and building. The “duck” versus the “decorated shed.” Adoption of looser attitude toward popular culture and past cultural references as more democratic and inclusive, less elitist — even though Venturi hails from an elite background and, in effect, more or less co-opts “low” culture in the name of “high” culture. Examples of Robert Venturi’s and Denise Scott Brown’s work include the Vanna Venturi House, 1966, near Philadelphia, PA; unbuilt project for a Football Hall of Fame, 1966. Resurgence of an architecture of image: Phillip Johnson, AT&T Headquarters, New York City, 1984, the synthetic post-modern vocabulary combining shifted scales, popular culture, and historical references in the provision of corporate symbol/image in a 1980s skyscraper. Architectural modernity in the later 20th century: the placement of human experience in some conscious relation to history and society, whether as a populist claim (Venturi’s “main street” commercial glorification, e.g.), an accommodationist reform strategy (Duany and Platy-Zyberk at Seaside, e.g.), or an ironic commentary on conditions of modern global capitalism.
    [Show full text]