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

Home , Denise Scott Brown, Gerhard Kallmann

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

8 Aldo Rossi, Casa Aurora, Turin, Italy, 1987, detail of cornice

Rob Krier, Apartment block for Ritterstrasse, Berlin, 1977-88