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The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in American Studies
Architecture as Signs and Systems: For a Mannerist Time
Robert Venturi exploded onto the architectural scene in 1966 with a radical call to arms in Complexity and Contradiction . Further accolades and outrage ensued in 1972 when Venturi and Denise Scott Brown (along with Steven Izenour) analyzed the Las Vegas strip as an archetype in Learning from Las Vegas . Now, for the first time, these two observer-designer-theorists turn their iconoclastic vision onto their own remarkable partnership and the rule-breaking architecture it has informed.
The views of Venturi and Scott Brown have influenced architects worldwide for nearly half a century. Pluralism and multiculturalism; symbolism and iconography; popular culture and the everyday landscape; generic building and electronic communication are among the many ideas they have championed. Here, they present both a fascinating retrospective of their life work and a definitive statement of its theoretical underpinnings.
Accessible, informative, and beautifully illustrated, Architecture as Signs and Systems is a must for students of architecture and urban planning, as well as anyone intrigued by these seminal cultural figures. Venturi and Scott Brown have devoted their professional lives to broadening our view of the built world and enlarging the purview of practitioners within it. By looking backward over their own life work, they discover signs and systems that point forward, toward a humane Mannerist architecture for a complex, multicultural society.
The views of Venturi and Scott Brown have influenced architects worldwide for nearly half a century. Pluralism and multiculturalism; symbolism and iconography; popular culture and the everyday landscape; generic building and electronic communication are among the many ideas they have championed. Here, they present both a fascinating retrospective of their life work and a definitive statement of its theoretical underpinnings.
Accessible, informative, and beautifully illustrated, Architecture as Signs and Systems is a must for students of architecture and urban planning, as well as anyone intrigued by these seminal cultural figures. Venturi and Scott Brown have devoted their professional lives to broadening our view of the built world and enlarging the purview of practitioners within it. By looking backward over their own life work, they discover signs and systems that point forward, toward a humane Mannerist architecture for a complex, multicultural society.
- GenresArchitecture
264 pages, Hardcover
First published December 17, 2004
3 people are currently reading
95 people want to read
About the author
Robert Venturi
32 books61 followersRobert Charles Venturi, Jr. is an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the major architectural figures in the twentieth century. Together with his wife and partner, Denise Scott Brown, he helped to shape the way that architects, planners and students experience and think about architecture and the American built environment. Their buildings, planning, theoretical writings and teaching have contributed to the expansion of discourse about architecture. Venturi was awarded the Pritzker Prize in Architecture in 1991; the prize was awarded to him alone despite a request to include his equal partner Denise Scott Brown. As of 2013 a group of women architects is attempting to get her name added retroactively to the prize.[1][2] He is also known for coining the maxim "Less is a bore" a postmodern antidote to Mies van der Rohe's famous modernist dictum "Less is more". Venturi lives in Philadelphia with Denise Scott Brown.
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November 25, 2020
Whilst there is something continually irritating about Venturi always going first and Denise Scott Brown going second (as per the two halves of this book), Scott Brown herself seems to see it as par for the course. At the end of the introduction, she notes that "together we make a career," "working together makes us stronger." She also notes that "few people, however, give credibility to the notion of joint artistry in architecture. You decide." In other words, she has the calm assurance of knowing she makes up half the equation whilst also recognising that she won't get that recognition, which only reopens the old wounds of the Pritzker Architectural Award debate.
Putting that complaint aside, however, this book is strong in its compound approach. There are duplications of images and ideas, which, as Venturi notes, is inevitable in a long career shared. The two author-architects constantly bounce off each other's ideas, nudging and shaping each other and themselves. Venturi closes his introduction with a quote from T.S. Eliot; "We shall not cease from exploration / and the end of all our exploring / will be to arrive where we started / and know the place for the first time." Scott Brown then opens her introduction with an immediate reply; "Eliot's is an elderly person's observation," to which she essentially replies, 'and I guess so are we.' It has the ring of two great loves finishing each other's sentences, but moreover, it has the genuine spark of creativity, where one leaves off, or pauses, the other can launch off. With a shared approach such as this, there is a low risk that the creative font will run dry, or that there could ever be a bad case of writers' block.
Venturi's Part I is filled with his interest in the notion that symbolism has been a part of architecture forever. Venturi gives long lists of bullet point examples; Ancient Egyptian buildings covered in hieroglyphics are essentially billboards; a Roman Temple covered in gods mean that the outside form demonstrates the inside function; Gothic stained glass windows were propaganda that combined "glitter and narrative", and their facades were covered in 'hierarchies' of statues as three-dimensional billboards set up in the middle of town; the nostalgic woodland paintings on Swiss Chalets were the taming of the surrounding terrain; Zen gardens were a tightly stylised version of reality, and so on.
Venturi has two recurring writing quirks; the first is to apply 'Viva' to all his core ideas, presumably highlighting his manifesto moments while also harking back to his Vegas original-fame. The other stylistic device he relies heavily upon is the rhetorical question. It suggests a hesitant proposal, but in fact, masks a firm resolve. It presents an instruction as a question in the hope (or to ensure) that we will reach the same conclusion as him. When he starts "But could it also be argued that…" I think we can presume that what comes next is what he both thinks, and thinks we should think! Which reminds me of a third quirk; a proliferation of exclamation marks, not all of which are attached to his Viva-Las-Vegas moments.
Part II of the book is written by Denise Scott Brown, and within a few paragraphs, you get a strong feeling for who she is as a designer and a person. For example, she notes that her's is an African view of Las Vegas. As a Jewish child growing up in Africa, she remembers painting snow scenes for Christmas and "These early African experiences first raised for me the polarity of 'is' and 'ought' for me." Moreover, they led her to question the environment artistically. As she says; "learning-from-what's-around-you has remained an overarching theme for me." Her family home was Modernist, and she remembers playing ships on its spiral stairs, and notes; "You can have mythic allusions in houses with flat roofs, and you can also play on the roof." In other words, there is always a theoretical (authortorial) truth and a literal (actual) one.
Much of her section of the book relates to urban planning and its relationship with architecture. She spends a lot of time explaining why she and Venturi are not Postmodernists. Instead, she says that they are latter-day-Modernists, functionalists, who have travelled many of the same roads as the Postmodernists but have arrived at a different location. She feels that the post- and neo- Modernists have lost sight of their earliest motivations. To her, "PoMo" architects are too 'heavy-handed,' too 'literal' in their borrowings from their context and historical references. Scott Brown calls instead for 'deft allusions,' something 'lighter, and more compromised.' Whether the built architecture reflects that attitude is another matter, but her theoretical stance is a well-articulated and demonstrated by (carefully chosen) examples.
Unlike Venturi, who asks a question to make a point, Scott Brown's questions seem genuinely interested in initiating a discussion to hear answers. For example, when a designer mentions 'functionalism' she asks 'functional for whom?' and 'why?' When another architect pointed at plumbing and said 'now that's funcitonalism' she agreed but reminds us that the idea can't be expanded and be applied definitively to a whole building, and hold true, now and forever, for today's users and tomorrows. For Scott Brown, subjectivity, self-referentiality, and endless programmatic interpretations mean that both the questions and the answers are always changing. Hence, we must keep asking questions of ourselves, our motivations, and our proposed solutions. The older the builder, the more complex its readings, because its 'borrowings' are from so many various architectural times; "Historical rules are abrogated and formal vocabularies blended, as the elements are lifted, shifted, and placed to suit the internal needs of the building." She urges caution, noting that even carefully selected borrowings "can also be as fleeting as the flash of fish in water." She notes that it is a balance; "The architect who cares not at all for context is a boor; the one who cares only for context is a bore."
'Lifted and shifted' is such a fabulous explanatory and evocative word combination. So too the 'fleeting flash of fish'. In my opinion, Scott Brown is the better writer, and what she lacks in exclamation points, she makes up for in subtlety.
My favourite analogy in the book is referred to by both of the authors. It is the 'Glove and Mitten' analogy. As Venturi says, the mitten has "wriggle room" rather than the glove's "sculptural articulation." Through this, he demonstrates his preference for the architectural opportunity; "Viva Form Accommodates Functions, rather than Form Follow Function!" Scott Brown uses the metaphor to illustrate the idea of attempting to accommodate growth and change over time. It is the perfect metaphor to explain the risks and returns of the bespoke versus the 'one size fits most' approach, the made-for-now versus the made for the future course.
Overall, an insightful and enjoyable read that provides springing points rather than solutions. As Scott Brown says in her conclusion; "Design is an adventurous journey that should be allowed to have a surprising end point" – Viva la mitten!
Putting that complaint aside, however, this book is strong in its compound approach. There are duplications of images and ideas, which, as Venturi notes, is inevitable in a long career shared. The two author-architects constantly bounce off each other's ideas, nudging and shaping each other and themselves. Venturi closes his introduction with a quote from T.S. Eliot; "We shall not cease from exploration / and the end of all our exploring / will be to arrive where we started / and know the place for the first time." Scott Brown then opens her introduction with an immediate reply; "Eliot's is an elderly person's observation," to which she essentially replies, 'and I guess so are we.' It has the ring of two great loves finishing each other's sentences, but moreover, it has the genuine spark of creativity, where one leaves off, or pauses, the other can launch off. With a shared approach such as this, there is a low risk that the creative font will run dry, or that there could ever be a bad case of writers' block.
Venturi's Part I is filled with his interest in the notion that symbolism has been a part of architecture forever. Venturi gives long lists of bullet point examples; Ancient Egyptian buildings covered in hieroglyphics are essentially billboards; a Roman Temple covered in gods mean that the outside form demonstrates the inside function; Gothic stained glass windows were propaganda that combined "glitter and narrative", and their facades were covered in 'hierarchies' of statues as three-dimensional billboards set up in the middle of town; the nostalgic woodland paintings on Swiss Chalets were the taming of the surrounding terrain; Zen gardens were a tightly stylised version of reality, and so on.
Venturi has two recurring writing quirks; the first is to apply 'Viva' to all his core ideas, presumably highlighting his manifesto moments while also harking back to his Vegas original-fame. The other stylistic device he relies heavily upon is the rhetorical question. It suggests a hesitant proposal, but in fact, masks a firm resolve. It presents an instruction as a question in the hope (or to ensure) that we will reach the same conclusion as him. When he starts "But could it also be argued that…" I think we can presume that what comes next is what he both thinks, and thinks we should think! Which reminds me of a third quirk; a proliferation of exclamation marks, not all of which are attached to his Viva-Las-Vegas moments.
Part II of the book is written by Denise Scott Brown, and within a few paragraphs, you get a strong feeling for who she is as a designer and a person. For example, she notes that her's is an African view of Las Vegas. As a Jewish child growing up in Africa, she remembers painting snow scenes for Christmas and "These early African experiences first raised for me the polarity of 'is' and 'ought' for me." Moreover, they led her to question the environment artistically. As she says; "learning-from-what's-around-you has remained an overarching theme for me." Her family home was Modernist, and she remembers playing ships on its spiral stairs, and notes; "You can have mythic allusions in houses with flat roofs, and you can also play on the roof." In other words, there is always a theoretical (authortorial) truth and a literal (actual) one.
Much of her section of the book relates to urban planning and its relationship with architecture. She spends a lot of time explaining why she and Venturi are not Postmodernists. Instead, she says that they are latter-day-Modernists, functionalists, who have travelled many of the same roads as the Postmodernists but have arrived at a different location. She feels that the post- and neo- Modernists have lost sight of their earliest motivations. To her, "PoMo" architects are too 'heavy-handed,' too 'literal' in their borrowings from their context and historical references. Scott Brown calls instead for 'deft allusions,' something 'lighter, and more compromised.' Whether the built architecture reflects that attitude is another matter, but her theoretical stance is a well-articulated and demonstrated by (carefully chosen) examples.
Unlike Venturi, who asks a question to make a point, Scott Brown's questions seem genuinely interested in initiating a discussion to hear answers. For example, when a designer mentions 'functionalism' she asks 'functional for whom?' and 'why?' When another architect pointed at plumbing and said 'now that's funcitonalism' she agreed but reminds us that the idea can't be expanded and be applied definitively to a whole building, and hold true, now and forever, for today's users and tomorrows. For Scott Brown, subjectivity, self-referentiality, and endless programmatic interpretations mean that both the questions and the answers are always changing. Hence, we must keep asking questions of ourselves, our motivations, and our proposed solutions. The older the builder, the more complex its readings, because its 'borrowings' are from so many various architectural times; "Historical rules are abrogated and formal vocabularies blended, as the elements are lifted, shifted, and placed to suit the internal needs of the building." She urges caution, noting that even carefully selected borrowings "can also be as fleeting as the flash of fish in water." She notes that it is a balance; "The architect who cares not at all for context is a boor; the one who cares only for context is a bore."
'Lifted and shifted' is such a fabulous explanatory and evocative word combination. So too the 'fleeting flash of fish'. In my opinion, Scott Brown is the better writer, and what she lacks in exclamation points, she makes up for in subtlety.
My favourite analogy in the book is referred to by both of the authors. It is the 'Glove and Mitten' analogy. As Venturi says, the mitten has "wriggle room" rather than the glove's "sculptural articulation." Through this, he demonstrates his preference for the architectural opportunity; "Viva Form Accommodates Functions, rather than Form Follow Function!" Scott Brown uses the metaphor to illustrate the idea of attempting to accommodate growth and change over time. It is the perfect metaphor to explain the risks and returns of the bespoke versus the 'one size fits most' approach, the made-for-now versus the made for the future course.
Overall, an insightful and enjoyable read that provides springing points rather than solutions. As Scott Brown says in her conclusion; "Design is an adventurous journey that should be allowed to have a surprising end point" – Viva la mitten!
Displaying 1 of 1 review