Oral history interview with Denise Scott Brown 1990 Oct. 25-1991 Nov. 9 Scott Brown, Denise, b. 1931 Educator, Author, Architect Philadelphia, Pa. Size: Sound recordings: 10 sound cassettes Transcript: 188 p. Collection Summary: An interview of Denise Scott Brown conducted 1990 Oct. 25-1991 Nov. 9, by Peter Reed, for the Archives of American Art. Scott Brown discusses her family background and growing up in South Africa; her education at the University of Witwatersrand, the Architectural Association, London, a summer school in Venice, sponsored by Congres Internationale d'Architecture Moderne, and the University of Pennsylvania, recalling some of her teachers (including Arthur Korn and Louis Kahn); her first husband, Robert Scott Brown, and their travels throughout Europe and experiences in Pennsylvania; her teaching philosophy and experiences at the University of Pennsylvania, Yale, Harvard, UCLA, and Berkeley; the architecture program at Penn from her perspective as a student and as a member of the faculty; meeting Robert Venturi, their work together, the firm and the difficulties encountered in the 1970s and 1980s, some of their projects such as the National Gallery, London, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and planning work; publications such as "Complexity and Contradiction," "Urban concepts," "Worm's Eye View," and "Learning from Las Vegas;" postmodern architecture; critics; and her experiences as a woman in the field. Biographical/Historical Note: Denise Scott Brown (1931- ) is an architect of Philadelphia, Pa. This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators. Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service. How to Use this Interview A transcript of this interview appears below. The transcript of this interview is in the public domain and may be used without permission. Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Denise Scott Brown, 1990 Oct. 25-1991 Nov. 9, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution For more information on using the Archives’ resources, see the FAQ or Ask Us. Interview Transcript This transcript is in the public domain and may be used without permission. Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Denise Scott Brown, 1990 Oct. 25-1991 Nov. 9, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH DENISE SCOTT BROWN AT THE OFFICES OF VENTURI, SCOTT BROWN & ASSOCIATES MANAYUNK, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA OCTOBER 25, 1990 - NOVEMBER 9, 1991 INTERVIEWER: PETER REED PR: PETER REED DSB: DENISE SCOTT BROWN 1 PR: Why don't we begin at the beginning. I understand you were born in Zambia which in 1931 was what, Northern Rhodesia? DSB: That's right. PR: Tell me about your family -- your background. How was it that you were born in Zambia? DSB: Because basically, my parents were living there. PR: What were they doing? DSB: My father's family were from Johannesburg, South Africa. And he, as a young man, dropped out of college and went up North, as they said, to seek adventure and a living. Things were never quite that way. In actual fact, my family on both sides are from Eastern Europe. On my father's side from Lithuania, and on my mother's side from Latvia. And they left Eastern Europe to escape pogroms and my grandfather arrived, I think it was, in 1899 at Capetown, having done the standard immigrant thing that's so well-known in America. He worked to earn the fine his family would have to pay the Army. And then he left. I could say he'd been a businessman since the age of twelve. We grow up much later these days. He'd been a cattle merchant. And by the time he left -- at I think about fourteen -- he was established and he had the money to pay the fine. And he arrived -- they went steerage and he arrived with ten shillings in his pocket, which was not very much then. He worked on the docks until he had enough money to go inland. This was also the time the Boer War was starting. And he reached Johannesburg and started in business there. Now, that had to have been about 1900. My grandmother was a young woman living in Johannesburg -- also, I think, she was from Latvia. And her family -- her father -- ran a boarding house for the other young Jewish immigrants from Latvia or Lithuania. And so she was the boarding house keeper's daughter. They married in 1904. By that time, my grandfather was well off enough to have a rather smart wedding. We have this beautiful wedding photograph. This beautiful young woman -- I think she was seventeen. And by the time my father was born in 1905, their fortunes had already changed, and he was born in a poor district of Johannesburg called Vrededorp. So my grandfather was up and down in this way as a merchant. There was a time when he owned -- with eighteen partners -- a wholesale butcher shop. So my father was one of seven children growing up in Johannesburg. They were a middle class family, and the great aim my grandmother had was to send her children to college. Well, my father went to satisfy his mother for a year. He had done pretty well in high school, but his heart wasn't in it. I think that there is a strain of slight dyslexia that runs through our family. And he is a very brilliant man -- my father -- but when it comes to -- he reads a great deal. He has a very profound knowledge of history -- but he reads slowly. I think there was a good reason to drop out of college and learn at life's university, which is what he started to do up in Northern Rhodesia. Like I say, it's not as simple as going and seeking adventure. The way Jews went to different countries was the first generation may have gone alone, and I have a theory that the first generation were slightly deviant. That's why they had the guts to get up and go. I once had a professor who said, "Psychotic. You know, like all our grandfathers." And he was speaking about the immigrants. It was Chester Rapkin at Penn. Well, I don't think that -- you can't say the whole first generation was psychotic. But they probably didn't do too well in their own countries. My feeling is that the whole of America is a deviant culture because everyone from the Pilgrim fathers onward, didn't sit well with their own culture. And that's why America is so vastly different from Europe to my way of thinking. But, in any case, my grandfather and a brother went to Africa. And then my father again went to where he had a cousin in, what was then, Northern Rhodesia. And they owned little stores. There were Jewish merchants in each little town. And the customers were the white settlers and the Africans on the mines. So, in a way, throughout Africa, in economic development terms, you can say that the Jews were there to kind of build infrastructure. It's of course the role they had in Russia, too. There were the upper classes, landed nobility and the serfs. And very often the Jews were the merchants. They did the same thing when they got to Africa. So my father went up to this wilderness, which was still lion country, and started working for different storekeepers in different little towns, learning a little more with each case. His stories are amazing. And I did an oral history for him. We sat him down in his early eighties, with all his grandchildren around him, and we all asked questions. And I have that taped. PR: Wonderful. What was his name? DSB: Shim Lakofski. I have even the transcription, but I have to correct the tape. And he's still alive. He's eighty-five. PR: Where does he live today? DSB: He lives in England. And my mother's family came from Kurland, which is a part of Latvia. And my grandmother was -- she had foster parents, because their family -- the grandfather had gone to Africa and died in Africa. These early Jewish immigrants died of yellow fever, black water fever -- all sorts of 2 things. Unnatural early deaths, leaving destitute the children and mothers they were hoping to bring with them when the had found a footing. So for that reason, my grandmother was brought up by a rich family of relatives in Latvia, and the photograph that we have of her as a young girl, at the turn of the century, she was exquisite. And she's incredibly beautifully dressed. My mother said she was brought up like a princess. So she was sent out to marry my grandfather, which was again, a custom. Sight unseen you got your bride, and love came later. And work was hard, and you worked together, and love was not the romantic thing that was seen here. But it seems that when my grandfather met her, he fell very much in love with her. She was a very beautiful, wonderful woman. And she had all these aspirations from this grand life she had led. And if you've ever seen The Flame Trees of Thika, which is a "Masterpiece Theater" of the life of Elspeth Huxley, I sat and laughed through that whole thing, because it's exactly the story of my parents.