Robert Venturi

Robert Venturi 1

Robert Venturi

Robert VenturiBorn June 25, 1925

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Awards Pritzker Prize (1991), Vincent Scully Prize (2002)

Vanna Venturi House

Robert Charles Venturi, Jr. (born June 25, 1925) is anAmerican architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi,Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the major architecturalfigures in the twentieth century. Together with his wife andpartner, Denise Scott Brown, he helped to shape the way thatarchitects, planners and students experience and think aboutarchitecture and the American built environment. Theirbuildings, planning, theoretical writings and teaching havecontributed to the expansion of discourse about architecture.Venturi was awarded the Pritzker Prize in Architecture in1991.[1] He is also known for coining the maxim "Less is abore" a postmodern antidote to Mies van der Rohe's famous modernist dictum "Less is more". Venturi lives inPhiladelphia with Denise Scott Brown. They have a son, James Venturi.

Early life and educationVenturi was born in Philadelphia to Robert Venturi, Sr. and Vanna (née Luizi) Venturi and was raised as a Quaker.[2]

Venturi attended school at the Episcopal Academy in Merion, Pennsylvania.[3] He graduated summa cum laude fromPrinceton University in 1947 where he was a member-elect of Phi Beta Kappa and won the D'Amato Prize inArchitecture.[2] He received his M.F.A. from Princeton in 1950. The educational program at Princeton in these yearswas a key factor in Venturi's development of an approach to architectural theory and design that drew fromarchitectural history in analytical, as opposed to stylistic, terms.[4] In 1951 he briefly worked under Eero Saarinen inBloomfield Hills, Michigan, and later for Louis Kahn in Philadelphia. He was awarded the Rome Prize Fellowship atthe American Academy in Rome in 1954, where he studied and toured Europe for two years.From 1954 to 1965, Venturi held teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as Kahn'steaching assistant, an instructor, and later, as associate professor. It was there, in 1960, that he met fellow facultymember, architect and planner Denise Scott Brown. Venturi taught later at the Yale School of Architecture and was avisiting lecturer with Scott Brown in 2003 at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.

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Writings

Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. wasdesigned by Venturi in 1980

A controversial critic of the blithely functionalist and symbolicallyvacuous architecture of corporate modernism during the 1950s, Venturihas been considered a counterrevolutionary. He published his "gentlemanifesto, "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture" in 1966,described in the introduction by Vincent Scully to be "probably themost important writing on the making of architecture since LeCorbusier's 'Vers Une Architecture', of 1923." Derived from courselectures at the University of Pennsylvania, Venturi received a grantfrom the Graham Foundation in 1965 to aid in its completion. Thebook demonstrated, through countless examples, an approach tounderstanding architectural composition and complexity, and theresulting richness and interest. Drawing from both vernacular andhigh-style sources, Venturi introduced new lessons from the buildings of architects both familiar (Michelangelo,Alvar Aalto) and then forgotten (Frank Furness, Edwin Lutyens). He made a case for "the difficult whole" ratherthan the diagrammatic forms popular at the time, and included examples—both built and unrealized—of his ownwork to demonstrate the possible application of the techniques illustrated within. The book has been translated andpublished in 18 languages.

Immediately hailed as a theorist and designer with radical ideas, Venturi went to teach a series of studios at the YaleSchool of Architecture in the mid-1960s. The most famous of these was a studio in 1968 in which Venturi and ScottBrown, together with Steven Izenour, led a team of students to document and analyze the Las Vegas Strip, perhapsthe least likely subject for a serious research project imaginable. In 1972, Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenourpublished the folio, A Significance for A&P Parking Lots, or Learning from Las Vegas later revised in 1977 asLearning from Las Vegas: the Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form using the student work as a foil for newtheory. This second manifesto was an even more stinging rebuke to orthodox modernism and elite architecturaltastes. The book coined the terms "Duck" and "Decorated Shed"--descriptions of the two predominant ways ofembodying iconography in buildings. The work of Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown adopted the latter strategy,producing formally simple "decorated sheds" with rich, complex and often shocking ornamental flourishes. Thoughhe and his wife co-authored several additional books at the end of the century, these two have proved mostinfluential.[5]

Architecture

The Guild House, completed 1964, on SpringGarden Street, Philadelphia

The architecture of Robert Venturi, although perhaps not as familiartoday as his books, helped redirect American architecture away from awidely practiced, often banal, modernism in the 1960s to a moreexploratory, and ultimately indubitable, design approach that openlydrew lessons from architectural history and responded to the everydaycontext of the American city.[6] Venturi's buildings typically juxtaposearchitectural systems, elements and aims, to acknowledge the conflictsoften inherent in a project or site. This "inclusive" approach contrastedwith the typical modernist effort to resolve and unify all factors in acomplete and rigidly structured—and possibly less functional and moresimplistic—work of art. The diverse range of buildings of Venturi's

early career offered surprising alternatives to then current architectural practice, with "impure" forms (such as the North Penn Visiting Nurses Headquarters), apparently casual asymmetries (as at the Vanna Venturi House), and

Robert Venturi 3

pop-style supergraphics and geometries (for instance, the Lieb House).

Chapel at the Episcopal Academy, NewtownSquare, PA. (2010)

Venturi created the firm Venturi and Short with William Short in 1960.After John Rauch replaced Short as partner in 1964, The firm's namechanged to Venturi and Rauch. Venturi married Denise Scott Brown onJuly 23, 1967 in Santa Monica, California, and in 1969, Scott Brownjoined the firm as partner in charge of planning. In 1980, The firm'sname became Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown, and after Rauch'sresignation in 1989, Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates. The firm,based in Philadelphia, was awarded the Architecture Firm Award bythe American Institute of Architects in 1985. Recent work has includedmany commissions from academic institutions, including campusplanning and university buildings, and civic buildings in London,Toulouse and Japan.

Venturi's architecture has had world-wide influence, beginning in the 1960s with the dissemination of thebroken-gable roof of the Vanna Venturi House and the segmentally arched window and interrupted string courses ofGuild House. The playful variations on vernacular house types seen in the Trubeck and Wislocki Houses offered anew way to embrace, but transform, familiar forms. The facade patterning of the Oberlin Art Museum and thelaboratory buildings demonstrated a treatment of the vertical surfaces of buildings that is both decorative andabstract, drawing from vernacular and historic architecture while still being modern. Venturi's work arguablyprovided a key influence at important times in the careers of architects Robert A. M. Stern, Philip Johnson, MichaelGraves, Graham Gund and James Stirling, among others.Venturi is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, the American Institute of Architects, The AmericanAcademy of Arts and Letters and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Selected works

Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery, London

• Vanna Venturi House; Philadelphia (1964) won the AIATwenty-five Year Award and was recognized as a "Masterwork ofModern American Architecture" by the United States Postal Servicein May 2005.

• Guild House; Philadelphia (1964)• The Lieb House located in Barnegat Light, New Jersey was

designed by Venturi and his wife Denise Scott Brown and built in1967. It is best known for the huge number 9 on its front, and thesailboat-shaped window on one side. A Long Island, New Yorkcouple purchased this home in early March 2009 for just $1 to saveit from demolition, paying at least $100,000 to move it on a barge to Glen Cove, Long Island.[7]

• Fire Station #4; Columbus, Indiana (1968)• Trubek and Wislocki Houses; Nantucket, Massachusetts (1971)• Brant House; Greenwich, Connecticut (1972)•• Dixwell Fire Station, New Haven, CT (1974)• Allen Memorial Art Museum modern addition, Oberlin College; Oberlin, Ohio (1976)• BASCO Showroom; Philadelphia (1976)• Franklin Court; Philadelphia (1976)

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Inside the Seattle Art Museum

Wu Hall (left), designed by Robert Venturi, atPrinceton University

Trabant Student Center, University of Delaware

• Best Products Catalog Showroom; Langhorne, Pennsylvania (1978)• Coxe-Hayden House and Studio; Block Island, Rhode Island (1981)• Gordon Wu Hall; Princeton University, New Jersey (1983)• House in New Castle, Delaware (1983)• Lewis Thomas Laboratory, Princeton University, New Jersey

(1986)• House in East Hampton, Long Island, New York (1990)• Gordon and Virginia MacDonald Medical Research Laboratories,

UCLA; Los Angeles, California (1991)• Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery, London; United Kingdom

(1991)• Seattle Art Museum; Seattle, Washington (1991)• Restoration of the Fisher Fine Arts Library, University of

Pennsylvania; Philadelphia (1991)• Children's Museum; Houston, Texas (1992)• Charles P. Stevenson, Jr. Library, Bard College;

Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (1994)• University of Delaware, Trabant Student Center (1996)• Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; San Diego, California

(1996)• Mielparque Nikko Kirifuri Resort; Nikko National Park, Japan

(1997)• Gonda (Goldschmied) Neurosciences and Genetics Research

Center, UCLA; Los Angeles, California (1998)• Provincial Capitol Building; Toulouse, France (1999)• Frist Campus Center, Princeton University; New Jersey (2000)• Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College; Hanover,

New Hampshire (2000)• Perelman Quadrangle, University of Pennsylvania; Philadelphia

(2000)

• Baker/Berry Library, Dartmouth College; Hanover, New Hampshire (2002)• Dumbarton Oaks Library, Harvard University; Washington, D.C. (2005)• Undergraduate Science Building, Life Sciences Institute and Palmer Commons complex, University of Michigan;

Ann Arbor, Michigan (2005)•• Biomedical Biological Science Research Building (BBSRB), University of Kentucky; Lexington, Kentucky

(2005)• Congregation Beth El Synagogue - Sunbury, PA. (2007)[8]

• Episcopal Academy Chapel; Newtown Square, Pennsylvania (2008)

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Awards• Rome Prize Fellow, American Academy in Rome; 1956[9]

• AIA Medal for Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture; 1978• Fellow in the American Institute of Architects, 1978•• AIA Architecture Firm Award, to Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown; 1985•• Commendatore of the Order of Merit, Republic of Italy; 1986• AIA Twenty-five Year Award to the Vanna Venturi House; 1989[10]

• Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters; 1990• The Pritzker Architecture Prize; 1991 [4]

• National Medal of Arts, United States Presidential Award; 1992 (with Denise Scott Brown)[11]

•• Commandeur de L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres, Republique Française, Ministère de la Culture et de laCommunication; 2000

• Vincent Scully Prize, National Building Museum; 2002 (with Denise Scott Brown)[12]

• Design Mind Award, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards; 2007 (with Denise Scott Brown)[13]

Bibliography• Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, The Museum of Modern Art Press, New York 1966. ISBN

0-87070-281-5• Learning from Las Vegas (with Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour), MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1972,

revised 1977. ISBN 0-262-72006-X• Iconography and Electronics upon a Generic Architecture : A View from the Drafting Room, MIT Press, 1998.

ISBN 0-262-72029-9• Architecture as Signs and Systems: for a Mannerist Time (with Denise Scott Brown), Harvard University Press,

2004. ISBN 0-674-01571-1

References[1] Goldberger, Paul (14 April 1991). "ARCHITECTURE VIEW; Robert Venturi, Gentle Subverter of Modernism" (http:/ / query. nytimes. com/

gst/ fullpage. html?res=9D0CEEDD1338F937A25757C0A967958260). The New York Times. .[2][2] The Nassau Herald 1947, Princeton University yearbook[3] Thomas, George E. (2000). William L. Price, Arts and Crafts to Modern Design (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=m19alHeSKVwC).

Princeton Architectural Press. pp. 362. ISBN 1-56898-220-8. . in Introduction by Robert Venturi[4] Robert Venturi 1991 Laureate (http:/ / www. pritzkerprize. com/ laureates/ 1991/ bio. html) Pritzker Architecture Prize[5] Mark Alan Hewitt. "Venturi, Robert." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. 28 Nov. 2011

<http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T2086166>.[6] Interview: Robert Venturi & Denise Scott Brown (http:/ / www. archdaily. com/ 130389/

interview-robert-venturi-denise-scott-brown-by-andrea-tamas/ ) April 25, 2011 at Archdaily.com (http:/ / www. archdaily. com/ )[7] La Gorge, Tammy (2009-03-13). "To Save a Venturi House, It Is Moved" (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2009/ 03/ 14/ nyregion/ 14lieb.

html?_r=1). New York Times. . Retrieved 2009-03-15.[8] "Congregation Beth El Website" (http:/ / www. beth-el-sunbury. org/ synagogue/ ). . Retrieved 2012-04-30.[9] Directory 1951 to 1960 (http:/ / www. sof-aarome. org/ sof_dir_1951_1960. html) Society of Fellows of the American Academy in Rome[10] Twenty-five Year Award Recipients (http:/ / www. aia. org/ awards_25yearrecipients) The American Institute of Architects[11] List of Medalists (http:/ / arts. endow. gov/ honors/ medals/ medalists_year. html) National Medal of Arts[12] Vincent Scully Prize (http:/ / www. nbm. org/ support-us/ awards__honors/ scully-prize/ ) National Building Museum[13] Design Mind Award (http:/ / www. cooperhewitt. org/ NDA/ 2007/ award. asp?catID=dm& nameID=dsbrv) Cooper-Hewitt National Design

Awards; 2007

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External links• Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc. firm web site (http:/ / www. vsba. com/ )• Online profile of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc. (http:/ / www. architecture-page. com/ go/ people/

profiles/ venturi-scott-brown-associates)• Stories of Houses: The Vanna Venturi House in Philadelphia, by Robert Venturi (http:/ / storiesofhouses.

blogspot. com/ 2005/ 11/ vanna-venturi-house-in-philadelphia-by. html)• Design Strategies of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown (http:/ / www. archinomy. com/ blog/

robert-venturi-and-denise-scott-brown. html)• Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown tell their life stories at Web of Stories (http:/ / www. webofstories. com/

people/ robert. venturi. and. denise. scott. brown) (video)• Robert Venturi (http:/ / www. charlierose. com/ guest/ view/ 2434) on Charlie Rose• Robert Venturi (http:/ / www. imdb. com/ name/ nm3634001/ ) at the Internet Movie Database• Works by or about Robert Venturi (http:/ / worldcat. org/ identities/ lccn-n79-64990) in libraries (WorldCat

catalog)• Robert Venturi interview (http:/ / www. archdaily. com/ 130389/

interview-robert-venturi-denise-scott-brown-by-andrea-tamas/ )

Article Sources and Contributors 7

Article Sources and ContributorsRobert Venturi  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=539531413  Contributors: 777sms, AgnosticPreachersKid, Ahoerstemeier, Aka, Amedi007, AndreasPraefcke, Arakunem,Architectcheck, Arxiloxos, Athaenara, Blahm, Boardandbatten, BooksXYZ, BoringHistoryGuy, Brazzouk, Brian Kendig, Buckyboot, Bunnyhop11, CCS81, Camerafiend, Capecodeph,Christophe Krief, Cohesion, CommonsDelinker, Connormah, Cribananda, D6, DVD R W, Dantadd, Dargomyzhsky, DavidLevinson, Dc, Dogears, Dthomsen8, DutchTreat, Elekhh, Eyedubya,Fionatempleton, Fitzrovia calling, Flatterworld, Gamaliel, GiantSnowman, Hewittarch, Hu12, Infrogmation, Iwmills, JaGa, James Russiello, Jetman, Joel7687, Joey80, Joffle, Johnpseudo, KRS,Kanabekobaton, Ken Gallager, KennethSides, Kevinlynch97, King of Hearts, Kingpin13, Kleeingram, Lockley, Lonelymiesarchie, Look2See1, Martarius, Materialscientist, McNoddy, Mcginnly,Mettimeline, Nlu, P.T. Aufrette, PDH, Pablitochumm2, Pburka, Pethan, Raul654, Rawg89, Redcabin21, Rich Farmbrough, Rockpocket, SDC, Shawn in Montreal, Sicilarch, Smallbones, Sparkit,Srini81, Stirling Newberry, Sullivanesque, Superbret, TTKK, Tadanisakari, Tanet, Tassedethe, The architect, The wub, Trorov, Ulric1313, Vegaswikian, Waacstats, Wizardman, Y, YamamotoIchiro, 84 anonymous edits

Image Sources, Licenses and ContributorsFile:V Venturi H 720am.JPG  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:V_Venturi_H_720am.JPG  License: Public Domain  Contributors: SmallbonesFile:Freedom Plaza - Washington, DC.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Freedom_Plaza_-_Washington,_DC.jpg  License: Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike3.0  Contributors: AgnosticPreachersKid at en.wikipediaFile:Venturi Guild House.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Venturi_Guild_House.jpg  License: Creative Commons Zero  Contributors: User:SmallbonesFile:Espicopal Acad int.JPG  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Espicopal_Acad_int.JPG  License: Public Domain  Contributors: SmallbonesImage:National Gallery London Sainsbury Wing 2006-04-17.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:National_Gallery_London_Sainsbury_Wing_2006-04-17.jpg  License:Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported  Contributors: Richard GeorgeImage:SAM Art Ladder 02.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:SAM_Art_Ladder_02.jpg  License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Contributors: Joe MabelImage:Wu and 1915 Halls Butler College Princeton.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wu_and_1915_Halls_Butler_College_Princeton.jpg  License: GNU FreeDocumentation License  Contributors: Photo: Andreas PraefckeFile:Udel - Trabant center1.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Udel_-_Trabant_center1.jpg  License: GNU Free Documentation License  Contributors: Grenavitar

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