A Catalog: “Main Street Is Almost Alright” Robert Venturi and Denise Scott

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A catalog: “Main street is almost alright” Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Vanna Venturi House, 1966, near Philadelphia, PA . 1 Compositional balance on garden façade is achieved via unbalanced individual elements Interior living room and staircase Venturi’s “Duck” vs. “Decorated Shed” concept (1968) (Gerhard Kallmann and Michael McKinnell, Boston City Hall, 1963-1968, may have been what they had in mind when they sketched their cartoon duck/building) 2 Martin Maurer, retail shop for ducks and duck eggs, 1930s, Eastern Long Island Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, unbuilt project for a Football Hall of Fame, 1970 The building as decorated shed Phillip Johnson, AT&T Headquarters, New York City, 1984 3 Peter Eisenman, House VI, 1970, Connecticut ‘First floor of Schröder House’ Gerrit Rietveld (1888–1964) Netherlands 1924 Pencil, ink, watercolour on collotype 83.5 x 86.8cm Centraal Museum, Utrecht Le Corbusier, Pavilion de Esprit Nouveau, Paris, 1925 4 Peter Eisenman, study diagrams for House VI; contemporary study of window glazing and circulation Richard Meier, Getty Center, Los Angeles, 1986-96 Charles Moore’s Piazza d’Italia, New Orleans, 1975-79 5 Charles Moore’s Piazza d’Italia, New Orleans, 1975-79 . James Stirling and Michael Wolford’s New State Gallery (“Neue Staatsgalerie”) in Stuttgart, Germany, 1984 6 Site plan and plan of Neue Staatsgalerie compared with plan of Le Corbusier’s Palace of Assembly in Chandigarh Quotations from classical planning, but also modern movements like hi-tech and buildings like the Pompidou Centre and the Johnson Wax Building by Frank Lloyd Wright (1938, below right) . 7 Aldo Rossi, Casa Aurora, Turin, Italy, 1987 Aldo Rossi, Casa Aurora, Turin, Italy, 1987 Aldo Rossi, Casa Aurora, Turin, Italy, 1987 8 Aldo Rossi, Casa Aurora, Turin, Italy, 1987, detail of cornice Rob Krier, Apartment block for Ritterstrasse, Berlin, 1977-88 9.

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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).
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From Lasvegas
.c .~ OJ ~ ~ <Il ~ u [) o > --~----- -- r t'11 > ~ ,....z z o "'!j ~ ~ r >C/l <: M Copyright ©1977, 1972 by ~ The Massachusetts Institute of Technology C/l Originally published as Learning from Las Vegas <: All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, eke i1> tronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and re ::l LEARNING trieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. =.2 V! 8 >: b:I Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data 3 ,>. Venturi, Robert. ::l FROM Learning from Las Vegas. ,... N i1> Bibliography: p. ::l o 1. Architecture-Nevada-Las Vegas. 2. Symbolism in architecture. I. SCOtt Brown, Denise, C.., 1931- ,joint author. II. Izenour, Steven, joint author. III. Tide. NA735.L3V4 1977 720'.9793'13 77-1917 ISBN 0·262·72006-X (paperback) LAS VEGAS 20 Revised Edition 11111\1. Robert Venturi Denise Scott Brown Steven Izenour OJ , J::"' (l) -l-J 01: ..... u Ql " ~ 4 LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE STRIP 35 lot required along the Strip because interaction is by car and highway. distances between buildings; because they are far apart, they can be {ou drive from one casino to another even when they are adjacent be comprehended at high speeds. Front footage on the Strip has not yet ause of the distance between them, and an intervening service station reached the value it once had on Main Street, and parking is still an ap ; not disagreeable. propriate filler. Big space between buildings is characteristic of the Strip.
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