Here is a plea for proper architectural humanity and humility as well as a plan for accommodating the desires and values of ordinary people who are too often being dragged along on architectural ego trips and uplift programs. It is also realistic examination of the American vernacular environment-as-it-is and a reexamination of the goal of architecture and the role of the architect. Learning from Las Vegas is addressed both to directly interested parties—architects and planners—and to the fragmented majority—the innocent bypassers who get gas at a nonpseudocolonial filling station in order to drive home to some architect's monolithic superbrutal apartmented self-monument. And whether they are producers or consumers of buildings and cities, readers will discover in this book a finely argued development of ideas illuminated by numerous and varied illustrations. The book is a delight which will induce either a burst of affirmation or a splendid rage. Venturi, Ms. Brown, and Izenour write that the lessons of Las Vegas for architects of today are as relevant as those of classical Rome were to the past century. Their book is divided into three parts. The first is an illustrated study of the iconography and symbolism of Las Vegas, with special attention to the Las Vegas "Strip"—the road leading from the airport to downtown—which leads to a head-on defense of automobile dominance and what denigrators call "urban sprawl." The middle part generalizes this viewpoint, showing by historical example how the Modern movement has led to an architecture of the Heroic and the Original. The authors prescribe what they believe is an urgently needed antidote: a new modesty, an architectural populism, and an acceptance of the Ugly and the Ordinary. The last part of the book illustrates how the theory is translated into reality: it presents the projects undertaken over the past several years by the firm of which the authors are members, Venturi and Rauch. Robert Venturi, writing about today's architect, states, "I feel the role of prima donna culture hero, even in its modern form as prima donna anticulture antihero, is a late Romantic theme as obsolete for the architect and for the complex interdependencies of architectural practice today as is the 'heroic and original' building for architecture. An architect strong on his own feet does not need this illusory support at the expense of other architects...." The challenge is clear and forthright. Articles based on earlier versions of material in this book have already caused a great deal of controversy and rethinking. In writing the lexicon of vernacular architecture with an American accent, the authors have been denounced by some established professionals as nonarchitects, even anti-architects. But at the present uncertain point in the development of the Modern movement, it's a useful controversy that could result in a firmer sense of future direction and closer accommodation to social realities.

Learning from Las Vegas

Arts & Photography

Robert Venturi

Steven Izenour

DENISE SCOTT BROWN

Architecture

Mit Pr

Learning from Las Vegas created a healthy controversy on its appearance in 1972, calling for architects to be more receptive to the tastes and values of "common" people and less immodest in their erections of "heroic," self-aggrandizing monuments.
This revision includes the full texts of Part I of the original, on the Las Vegas strip, and Part II, "Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed," a generalization from the findings of the first part on symbolism in architecture and the iconography of urban sprawl. (The final part of the first edition, on the architectural work of the firm Venturi and Rauch, is not included in the revision.) The new paperback edition has a smaller format, fewer pictures, and a considerably lower price than the original. There are an added preface by Scott Brown and a bibliography of writings by the members of Venturi and Rauch and about the firm's work.

Learning from Las Vegas - Revised Edition: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form

Photography & Video

The MIT Press

Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture

First published in 1966, and since translated into 16 languages, this remarkable book has become an essential document in architectural literature. As Venturi's ""gentle manifesto for a nonstraightforward architecture,"" Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture expresses in the most compelling and original terms the postmodern rebellion against the purism of modernism. Three hundred and fifty architectural photographs serve as historical comparisons and illuminate the author's ideas on creating and experiencing architecture. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture was the winner of the Classic Book Award at the AIA's Seventh Annual International Architecture Book Awards.

Engineering & Transportation

Engineering

Museum of Modern Art

Dust jacket notes: "The house that Robert Venturi designed for his mother in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, and had built in 1964, is arguably the most architecturally influential building of the second half of the twentieth century. Here, Robert Venturi reflects on this seminal building from a distance of over a quarter of a century. He discusses why its style and form, once so revolutionary, are accepted now. Equally important, he reminisces about 'how hard it was for me, as its author, to arrive at.' This book presents for the first time all of the developmental drawings that were executed to accompany the six stages of the design. Also included are the original construction drawings, historical photographs of the house, and a series of models, which are now in The Museum of Modern Art in New York...."

Mother's House: The Evolution of Vanna Venturi's House in Chestnut Hill

Rizzoli

Includes 350 architectural photos depicting historical comparisons, and the author's ideas on creating and experiencing architecture.

Architectural Press

First published in 1966, and since translated into 16 languages, this remarkable book has become an essential document of architectural literature. A "gentle manifesto for a nonstraightforward architecture," Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture expresses in the most compelling and original terms the postmodern rebellion against the purism of modernism. Three hundred and fifty architectural photographs serve as historical comparisons and illuminate the author's ideas on creating and experiencing architecture. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture was the winner of the Classic Book Award at the AIA's Seventh Annual International Architecture Book Awards.

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Two Responses to Some Immediate Issues

Univ of Pennsylvania Institute of Contemporary Art

Now available in its original edition along with critical commentary, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture is the founding text of postmodernism in architecture
First published in 1966, Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, widely considered the foundational text of postmodernism, has become an essential document in architectural theory and criticism. This new two-volume boxed set presents a facsimile of the original edition paired with a compendium of new scholarship on and around Venturi’s seminal treatise. The ten selected essays, a number of which were presented at a three-day international conference co-organized by MoMA to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Complexity and Contradiction in 2016, address diverse issues, such as the book’s relationship to Venturi’s own built oeuvre and its significance in the contemporary landscape. Additional short commentaries by contemporary practitioners attest to Complexity’s enduring influence on architectural practice. Together, these two volumes expand the horizons of―and introduce a new generation to―Venturi’s “gentle manifesto.”

Complexity and Contradiction at Fifty: Robert Venturi's "Gentle Manifesto": A Symposium

Stanley Tigerman

Stanislaus Von Moos

Emmanuel Petit

Jean-Louis Cohen

Lee Ann Custer

Peter Fröhlicher

Diane Harris

Andrew Leach

Mary McLeod

Joan Ockman

De l'ambiguïté en Architecture

Dunod]

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Robert Venturi. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Robert Venturi