Learning From Bob
September 19, 2018 8:44 PM Subscribe
Robert Venturi, famed-postmodernist and icon of American architecture, passed away Tuesday at the age of 93.
The co-author of Learning From Las Vegas and Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, Venturi is widely credited with kickstarting the postmodernist movement and is one of the most important postmodern theorists of the 20th century. Through both their built work, academic output, and written texts Scott Brown and Venturi helped to spark a movement in architecture that broke through the hegemony of modernism which had prevailed for much of the 20th century.
Some VSBA projects.
Learnings from Nantucket, what it was like growing up in a Venturi-designed house.
The co-author of Learning From Las Vegas and Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, Venturi is widely credited with kickstarting the postmodernist movement and is one of the most important postmodern theorists of the 20th century. Through both their built work, academic output, and written texts Scott Brown and Venturi helped to spark a movement in architecture that broke through the hegemony of modernism which had prevailed for much of the 20th century.
Some VSBA projects.
Learnings from Nantucket, what it was like growing up in a Venturi-designed house.
From a 2016 interview with Robert AM Stern being shared on Twitter (the whole thing is worth reading):
> Who were your masters?And then later…
As a student, Paul Rudolph was without question the dominating force in the school, and I certainly respected him and his work enormously. I also respected Philip Johnson and his work, but he was not actually teaching when I was a student. He was appearing for lectures and studio reviews. Then later on at the end of my student days, I came in close contact with Robert Venturi. And in my early days as an architect—or as an intern architect if you will—I continued to be very close to Bob Venturi and his ideas. I published in Perspecta 9/10, which came out in the spring 1965, a significant excerpt from his book (Complexity and Contradiction) and also a significant portfolio of Venturi and Rauch’s early work. I began to know the work quite well in 1962 and was in close contact with Venturi from that point forward. A servant with three masters is a problem. Since, for example, Philip Johnson always said he liked Bob Venturi’s plans but couldn’t stand his buildings, Bob Venturi is not prone to like anybody’s work of his generation but his own, and Paul Rudolph not liking Bob Venturi, especially after Bob Venturi and Denise Scott Brown savaged his Crawford Manor apartment house in the book Learning from Las Vegas.
> Your most traumatic experience with another architect?posted by cichlid ceilidh at 9:34 PM on September 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
(bursts into laughter) Well, there was a time when I had to peel Denise Scott Brown away from fighting with Paul Rudolph in my apartment over the subject of the way Denise and Bob Venturi had treated Rudolph’s Crawford Manor. This was at a little party I gave after the opening of the Venturi show at the Whitney in 1969. It was a small show, very interesting. So that was rather traumatic. And I remember that Ulrich Franzen, the architect, came up to me at the party and said: Bob you better go into the library, Denise is about to kill Paul Rudolph. That was pretty scary. There are probably some other moments.
An absolute master. I think I’ve only seen three — his addition to the National Gallery, the fire station in Columbus IN, and the humanities building at the (underrated) campus of SUNY Purchase, and was gobsmacked by them all. All works of the highest order.
posted by Capt. Renault at 10:47 PM on September 19, 2018
posted by Capt. Renault at 10:47 PM on September 19, 2018
,
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 2:09 AM on September 20, 2018
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 2:09 AM on September 20, 2018
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posted by doctornemo at 7:13 AM on September 20, 2018
posted by doctornemo at 7:13 AM on September 20, 2018
I'm surprised this hasn't gotten more response. Venturi is one of those theorists like Karl Marx, where even if you don't agree with their theories, you have to be aware of them and engage with them. It's hard to imagine architecture without the ideas of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.
posted by kevinbelt at 10:31 AM on September 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by kevinbelt at 10:31 AM on September 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Truly a towering figure (pun somewhat intended). VSB's work is pretty much instantly recognizable.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:29 PM on September 20, 2018
posted by aspersioncast at 1:29 PM on September 20, 2018
.
I grew up a few blocks from the house he built for his mother, and was recently very charmed to learn that he'd designed the Seattle Art Museum building not very far from where I live now. I can only hope that marinating in the soup of his work has rubbed off somehow.
posted by kalimac at 3:20 PM on September 20, 2018
I grew up a few blocks from the house he built for his mother, and was recently very charmed to learn that he'd designed the Seattle Art Museum building not very far from where I live now. I can only hope that marinating in the soup of his work has rubbed off somehow.
posted by kalimac at 3:20 PM on September 20, 2018
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