Explore the relationship between Pop Art and Postmodern architecture in reference to Learning From Last Vegas and films/artworks produced in 1960’s/70’s. Learning From Las Vegas, 1972, by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour is considered one of the most significant works written on the development of Post-modern architecture. The new architectural vision during the 1960’s became about generating a convincing urban development that used a “richer language of architecture based on metaphor and wit” 1 . Learning From Las Vegas, along with other of Venturi’s works such as Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) marked the start of a new angle towards architecture; architecture that aimed to convey the values of the American people. Venturi, Brown and Izenour analyse the vast landscape of Las Vegas and how it began to address the drive to communicate effectively through architecture. This communication was fore fronted by the growth of casinos, hotels and the mass of neon signs in Las Vegas. The development of these new entertainment complexes and refreshingly brash architecture grew in parallel to the rise of mass production and consumer culture in America. The economic prosperity during the 1960’s and 70’s marked the height of an immense form of communication. Advertisements filled newspapers, television screens and billboards, becoming increasingly more dominant and powerful. The impact of this imagery provoked the emergence of Pop Art in the late 1950’s. This bold movement aimed to move away from the dominant approaches to art and started to challenge the traditional conventions of what art aimed to represent. Artists such as Claus Oldenburg, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein used advertisements, product packages, comic books, music and films as the focal point of their work. The expression of what they saw and experienced 1 Charles Jenks, Modern Movements in Architecture (London, Penguin Books Ltd, 1987) 374
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Explore the relationship between Pop Art and Postmodern architecture in reference to Learning From Last Vegas and films/artworks produced in 1960’s/70’s.
Learning From Las Vegas, 1972, by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven
Izenour is considered one of the most significant works written on the development of
Post-modern architecture. The new architectural vision during the 1960’s became about
generating a convincing urban development that used a “richer language of architecture
based on metaphor and wit”1. Learning From Las Vegas, along with other of Venturi’s
works such as Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) marked the start of a
new angle towards architecture; architecture that aimed to convey the values of the
American people. Venturi, Brown and Izenour analyse the vast landscape of Las Vegas
and how it began to address the drive to communicate effectively through architecture.
This communication was fore fronted by the growth of casinos, hotels and the mass of
neon signs in Las Vegas. The development of these new entertainment complexes and
refreshingly brash architecture grew in parallel to the rise of mass production and
consumer culture in America.
The economic prosperity during the 1960’s and 70’s marked the height of an immense
form of communication. Advertisements filled newspapers, television screens and
billboards, becoming increasingly more dominant and powerful. The impact of this imagery
provoked the emergence of Pop Art in the late 1950’s. This bold movement aimed to move
away from the dominant approaches to art and started to challenge the traditional
conventions of what art aimed to represent. Artists such as Claus Oldenburg, Andy Warhol
and Roy Lichtenstein used advertisements, product packages, comic books, music and
films as the focal point of their work. The expression of what they saw and experienced
1 Charles Jenks, Modern Movements in Architecture (London, Penguin Books Ltd, 1987) 374
represented the current culture of the US. The relationship between Pop Art and Post-
Modern architecture is addressed in Learning From Las Vegas. Both Pop and the Las
Vegas architecture highlight the importance of the sign in the urban environment. The
aesthetic similarities between the two disciplines mark the rise in commercialisation,
creating iconic landscapes and imagery.
Learning From Las Vegas was amongst the first writings to challenge the Modernist
architectural vision. Modern architecture focused on the order and structure of the city and
on a “constructional efficiency”2. In many of Le Corbusier’s writings such as Five Points of
a New Architecture (1926) the focus is on the technical structure of buildings rather than
any philosophical implications. In Le Corbusier’s unrealised project for Paris, 1925 (Plan
Voisin) aimed to completely replace the existing city and re-build a capital which consists
of an identical grid of skyscrapers. In contrast to
Learning From Las Vegas, Venturi calls for
architects to focus on “learning from the existing
landscape”3. The emphasis became on
enhancing the environment rather than changing
it, or in Le Corbusier’s theory, completely
rebuilding and starting again.
Against other Modernist principles of simplicity and rationality, the post-modern era was
influenced by the visually complex periods of Baroque and Rococo. The “messy vitality”4
started to dominate over the order of the official style of government, church and suburban
2 Magali Sarfatti Larson, Behind the Post-modern facade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) 43 3 Robert Venturi and others, Learning From Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form, Revised Ed (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1977) 3 4 Mark Gelemter, A History of American Architecture, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001) 285
Le Corbusier, Plan Voison, Paris, France, 1925 http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/CorbuCache/900x720_2049_1707.jpg?r=0,
buildings. Venturi believed that architects now lived in “a cultural heritage which not only
nourishes us but provides useful precedents upon which new design ideas can be
based”.5 Despite the great influence of Corbusier’s rationalist structures, Venturi states
“how damaging, modernisms break with the broader and deeper architectural culture
was”6. From this new perspective, modernist architecture was seen as sterile and dull, and
in turn no longer reflected the idealised perfection that it originally aimed to. Learning From
Las Vegas directly confronted the Modernist architecture; “not the robust Modernism of the
1930s, but the thin, stale 1960s version”7 as Brown refers to in a later interview. Las Vegas
embodied a new type of architecture. The
city became a low lying expressive
landscape rather than a “monotonous
repetitive grid of mass housing” 8. It started
a new language of communication without
sky scrapers or the standardised form of
buildings.
Originally established as a railroad town in 1905, the look and function of Las Vegas
quickly developed. Despite the collapse of the American economy during the Great
Depression in 1929, the introduction of the Hoover Dam in 1931 gave Las Vegas’
economy a needed boost. The electricity produced at Hoover Dam allowed for more signs
and buildings to be cheaply ran as well as providing employment for construction workers.
5 Ibid, 284 6 D.J.R. Bruckner, The New York Times Guide to the Arts of the 20th Century: 1900-1929 (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2002) 2935 7 Stephanie Salomon and Steve Kroeter, Still Learning from Denise Scott Brown, Designer & Books, http://www.designersandbooks.com/blog/still-learning-from-denise-scott-brown, January 2014 8 Jenks, Modern Movements in Architecture,79
Venturi and others, Las Vegas, Fremont Street 1960s, Learning From Las Vegas, 39
Welcome to Las Vegas Sign, 1959 http://www.inoldlasvegas.com/downtown/
“Signs in Las Vegas use mixed media —words, pictures and sculpture to persuade and
inform”12. The aesthetic and purpose of the signs were parallel to that of the
advertisements that spread the mass popular culture even further. The communication
discussed by Venturi, Brown and Izenour became not only relevant to advertisements and
signs, but to Pop Art. Emerging in the late 1960’s, Pop artists focused on the symbolism of
the everyday American culture. The use of commercialised images, products, films and
celebrities represented a radical break from traditional subject matter. The underlying
concepts of the mass culture that defined the Pop artists were heightened by the new
approaches to techniques and style. Traditional painting techniques were replaced by
cheap commercial techniques that allowed the images to be reproduced multiple times.
Perhaps one of the most celebrated Pop Artist’s is Andy Warhol. Warhol’s work such as
Campbell's Soup Can (1962) shows every day products and advertisements. His paintings
12 Ibid, 55
Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1962. Synthetic polymer paint on thirty-two canvases, Each canvas 20 x 16" (50.8 x 40.6 cm) Museum of Modern Art, http://www.moma.org/wp/moma_learning/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Warhol.-Soup-Cans-469x292.jpg
Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych,1962, Acrylic paint on canvas, 2054 x 1448 x 20 mm, Tate, Purchased 1980 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/T/T03/T03093_8.jpg
evolved to using a silk screen which allows for rows of repeated images with only slight
alterations of colour or tonal aspects. This is executed in one of Warhol’s famous works
Marilyn Diptych, 1962, which uses an image of Marilyn Monroe taken from the popular film
Niagara (1953). Monroe’s face has become cartoon-like and the bright block colours are
distinctive of Warhol’s prints. Warhol references the highly publicised death of Monroe
through the contrast of colour to monochrome and comments on the “ubiquitous presence
in the media”13. The reproductions of the images brought question to authenticity and
originality as well as heightening the social trends and the idolised culture of the celebrity.
The commercial nature of Warhol’s work was also
apparent in the work of many other Pop Artists. Roy
Lichtenstein used the mechanised pattern of Ben-
Day dots that consists of repetitive dots placed next
to or overlapping that form a subtle illusion.
Lichtenstein selected popular imagery from comic
strips as his main influence, changing the images
only slightly. Through his works, he formed a
narrative that communicated the fast and perhaps
excessive way of life
James Rosenquist, another influential artist, formed assemblages that use various
products that had infiltrated through American society. I Love You With My Ford (1961)
draws attention to the production of the automobile and the new fast paced movement of
America.
13 Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, London: Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, 1981) 759
Roy Litchenstein, Image Duplicator, 1963, Oil and Magna on canvas, 61 × 50.8 cm, Courtesy Seattle Art Museum, http://lichtensteinfoundation.org/image-database
The juxtaposition of the car with the canned spaghetti and the role of the woman, all
become symbols of the middle-class American future. Rosenquist’s clever assemblages
follow the Pop Art concept of commenting on the modern culture and the ultimate
American dream. Robert Indiana’s abstracted signs USA 666 (1964-1966) and God is a
Lily of the Valley (1961) attempts to visual one aspect of the American dream; “easy life
and death”14. The idolised future of the US was no longer about political freedom but
instead was “measured by the number of commodities citizens could require”15.
The intent of Pop Art was so similar to that of the communication of the Las Vegas sign.
To promote, persuade and be a constant reminder of the commercial and entertainment
that was part of society. Visually, there are clear connections between the landscape of
Las Vegas and the style of Pop Art; the bold typography, vivid colours, abstracted images
and simplistic forms. The artworks and signs both easily draw the viewer’s attentions, just
as advertising aimed to do. Learning From Las Vegas repeatedly draws comparison
14 Lucy R. Lippard, Pop Art, 3rd ed (London: Thames & Hudson, 1970) 123 15 David McCarthy, Pop Art, Movements in Modern Art Series (London, Tate Publishing, 2002) 29
James Rosenquist, I Love You with My Ford, 1961, Oil on canvas, 109.23 cm x 57.5 cm. Moderna Museet, Stockholm. http://www.guggenheim.org/images/content/arts_curriculum/thumbs2/rosenquist_L1_1_l.jpg
Robert Indiana, USA 666, The 6th American Dream, 1964, Oil on canvas 105 x 105 in. http://robertindiana.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/The-Sixth-American-Dream-USA-666-600x593.jpg
between Pop Art and architecture, signifying the influence of both disciplines on the other.
Postmodern architects and the Pop artists approach hold many similarities:
“…creating the new may mean choosing the old or the existing. Pop artists have relearned
this. Our acknowledgment of existing, commercial architecture at the same of the highway
is within this tradition”16.
According to Learning From Las Vegas, modern architects abandoned the overlap of
architecture and art but this crossover between the two disciplines during the 20th century
introduced a new language of symbolism. It is argued by Venturi and Scott Brown that
other architects and urban planners focused on poverty and the inner city, but that their
research extended to the new epoch and folk art.
Whilst reflecting on Learning From Las Vegas, Scott
Brown comments on Pop arts “sense of fun and its
impure vision”, which “influenced how we saw and
documented Las Vegas”17.
Andy Warhol also talks of the iconography of the
landscape during the early 1960’s; “the farther west
we drove, the more pop everything looked”. Other Pop
artists directly looked at the American landscape. Allen
D’Arcangelo’s prints such as US Highway 1, Number 5
(1962) show commercial highway signs as silhouetted graphics. These works give the
perspective of driving along the vast space of the highway. In Learning From Las Vegas,
D’Arcangelo arrow print illustrates the “paradoxical subtleties”18. His prints also are similar
16 Venturi and others, Learning From Las Vegas, 6 17 Stephanie Salomon and Steve Kroeter, Still Learning from Denise Scott Brown, Designer & Books, http://www.designersandbooks.com/blog/still-learning-from-denise-scott-brown, January 2014
Allen D’Arcangelo, Highway 1, Number 5, 1962, Acrylic on canvas 48 x 55 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=79360
to the ‘movie sequences’ shown in Learning from Las Vegas on the journey through The
Strip and the highway. Ed Ruscha’s Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966) creates a
sequence through his photographs of the visual stages along the highway. Again, the
attention is towards signs and space in relation to the high speed culture and the visual
experience of the highway.
Another prime example of the connection between Pop Art and the Las Vegas landscape
is Claes Oldenburg’s 1978 commission for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Oldenburg was an artist that used everyday objects in a similar way to that of Warhol or
Rosenquist but executed them through physical forms. In collaboration with his wife,
Coosje van Bruggen, the pair created a large-scale sculpture titled Flashlight that stood in
the middle of the university campus by the performance centre. Expected to stand out both
day and night to audiences, “a subject suitable to both darkness and light was required”19.
18 Michel J Golec and Aron Vinegar, ed. Relearning from Las Vegas (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008) 144 19 Claes Oldbenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen, Flashlight, Large Scale Projects Image Gallery and Case Histories, http://oldenburgvanbruggen.com/largescaleprojects/flashlight.htm
The flashlight also came to represent the lights and illumination
of the Strip. After undergoing various changes, the end design
sees an 11 metre non reflective black sculpture. The coating
resulted in an intense black, taking an element of the night into
the day. During the night, only a small fluorescent glow circles
around the floor as the sculpture was upturned instead of the
light showing into the sky. The innovative approach to the
object creates a bold unmissable statement in the landscape,
just like the statements created by signs along the Las Vegas
Strip.
The crossover between popular culture and architecture was
resembled not only through Pop art paintings or sculpture, but in
many films during and after the 1960’s. Iconic films such as
Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Oceans Eleven (1960), Viva Las
Vegas (1964) and Corvette Summer (1978) all use Las Vegas
as the setting, whether a backdrop of the Strip or inside a casino. The gambling resorts
and neon signs provided a powerful visual that emphasised the current society. The
posters and adverts for films such as these share many visual qualities than that of Pop
artwork.
Claes Oldenburg, Flashlight, 1978, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Steel painted with polyurethane enamel 11.73 m high x 3.2 m diameter shttp://media.lasvegasweekly.com/img/photos/2010/11/10/oldenburg_flashlight_by_sam_morris_gmg_t1000.jpg?c76bf34eada957f64a0b14990027a576ff9bf379
Main Street, Las Vegas, Nevada, Car Chase scene taken from Diamonds are Forever, James Bond Film Series, Directed by Guy Hamilton, 1971 Ocean’s Eleven, Reproduced Film Poster, 1960,
Despite its clear attention to the relationship between Pop and Architecture, there are
some criticism of a sense of irony and contradictions throughout Learning From Las
Vegas. It was seen as a celebrating the landscape but statements such as “self-
dramatising entrepreneur” and “fabricated corporate advertising”20 hints at negative
aspects towards the popular culture. The ideas of Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour are
analysed in several essays from Re-Learning From Las Vegas. One of the writings, Signs
Taken For Wonders by Dell Upton, reiterates the architectural symbolism discussed in
Learning From Las Vegas. Upton also draws attention to how the narrative of the book
“repeatedly starts down one path then turns away from it”21. There is also the question
between high and low art which is addressed in Signs Taken For Wonders. Before the
release of the first edition Scott Brown talked about a resistant again Pop, stating “we are
part of a high art, not a folk or popular art22. Yet Venturi and Scott Brown’s immersion
within popular culture ironically came to create a new direction for high art.
Even when acknowledging some of the contradictions, Learning From Las Vegas was able
to create a new insight into not only architecture, but Pop Art and the symbolism of signs
and 20th century culture. The close relationship between Pop and Architecture is
repeatedly identified. The process of using every day values and influences, the visual
qualities and the break from traditional conventions show the huge overlap between the
two disciplines. Pop arts pictorial irony and the selection of mass produced imagery
expressed the culture, just as much as the signs of casinos, hotels and strip clubs did on
the Strip. The parallel work of Post-modern architects and Pop Artists had a huge
influence on each other and ultimately a huge influence on the future of the American
aesthetic. Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour recognised this influence and change, daring
20 Dell Upton, Signs Taken for Wonders, in Relearning from Las Vegas, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008, 334 21 Ibid, 335 22 Michel J Golec and Aron Vinegar, ed. Relearning from Las Vegas, 333
to criticise the boundaries previously set. By using Las Vegas as their focus, they were
able to highlight a new language of communication. A communication that uses growing
technology, media and advertisements that has become ever more apparent in the 21st
century. The neon signs of Las Vegas have become globally recognised and was perhaps
the first city to symbolise the direction towards a new age of society.
Word Count: 3218
Centerfold spread from Learning from Las Vegas (2nd edition, 1977), MIT Press, http://www.designersandbooks.com/sites/default/files/centerfold-710.jpg
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